Thursday February 7 2023
Festival Opening / Film Concert 1, 7.30 p. m.
Stephan-Saal, Ständehausstraße 4
The New Babylon (OT: Novy Vavylon)
Russia 1929, Director: Grigori Kosinzew/Leonid Trauberg, 93 min.
Accompaniment: KIT Chamber Orchestra conducted by François Salignat; The orchestra plays the original composition by Dmitri Shostakovich.
1871: In Paris, the music halls are still filled with unrestrained revelry as Prussian troops advance. Louise, a saleswoman at the “New Babylon” department store, is subjected to the harassment of her boss. She sympathizes with the Commune. During the fighting, she meets a young soldier with whom she falls in love, even though he is fighting for the enemy. Louise is arrested and sentenced to death; the young soldier is ordered to dig her grave. The Commune fails, but it foreshadows revolutions to come.
“The New Babylon” bv G. Kosinzew and L. Trauberg
The KIT Chamber Orchestra
during a rehearsal for “The New Babylon”
© Photo: Josef Jünger
Wednesday, Februar 8 2023, 4.00 p.m.
Cinema Kinemathek, Passagehof
The Girl from Spree Forest
Director: Hans Steinhoff,
Germany 1928, 81 min.
Accompaniment: Stephen Horne (piano)
The Spree Forest region has always been a popular setting for films of every genre. As early as 1911, Asta Nielsen starred in “The Stranger Bird,” a tragic love story. “The Spreewald Girl” is a far cry from that. Soldiers have arrived in the Spreewald village for maneuvers, and a typical comedy love story unfolds: a housekeeper (Claire Rommer) falls for an officer, a man considered beneath her station, while the estate manager wants her as his wife. A happy ending is guaranteed. A genre film, a successful example of popular cinema from the 1920s.
Claire Rommer
© Photo: Collection Josef Jünger
Wednesday, February 8 2023, 7.00 p.m.
Cinema Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Passagehof
Fight of the Tertia
Director: Max Mack
Germany 1929, 101 min.
Accompaniment: Günter Buchwald (piano).
Wilhelm Speyer’s book of the same name was popular reading material for young people in the 1920s. The story takes place in a progressive boarding school where liberal pedagogy is practiced and where, in addition to many boys, a popular girl is also in the same class. The film relocates the story to one of the North Frisian Islands, and Max Mack has created unique visuals that bathe the entire film in an atmospheric mood. The boarding school students successfully fight off a furrier from the neighboring small town who wants to kill all the cats to get his hands on their pelts.
Wednesday, February 8 2023, 9.00 p.,m.
Cinema Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Kaiser-Passage
Berlin: Symphony of a Great Ci
Germany 1927, ca. 87 min
Director: Walther Ruttmann,
In this quintessential Berlin film, the city itself becomes a cinematic landscape. We see a train entering the city early one morning, into its very heart, and witness the city’s awakening. The film follows the course of the day, from dawn to the hustle and bustle of the workday and the revelry of the night. The city is movement, is itself film, and this highly rhythmic film lends itself perfectly to being accompanied by electronic music.
“Berlin – Symphony of a Great City”
Photo: © Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin
Thursday, February 9 2023, 6.00 p.m.
Cinema Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Kaiserpassage
Faces of Children (OT: Visages d’Enfants)
Director: Jacques Feyder, 1925, 117 min.
Accompaniment: Richard Siedhoff (piano)
In a small Alpine village, a farmer loses his young wife. Two children have lost their mother. When their father remarries, the wife must fight for the children’s recognition. While the young girl is soon able to overcome her loss, the older son cannot forget his beloved mother. The Alpine landscape has always been considered a sublime setting, a backdrop for both heroic and tragic events. This is also true of Feyder’s film, which will reach a unique dramatic climax.
“Visages d’Enfants” by Jacques Feyder
Thursday February 9 2023, 9.00 p.m.
Cinema Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Kaiserpassage
Way Down East
Director: David W. Griffith, 1920, 146 min.
Accompaniment: Stephen Horne (piano) and Frank Bockius (percussion)
A classic melodrama about a “persecuted innocent,” portrayed here by one of the great stars of the early silent film era: Lilian Gish. She plays a young maid who, wherever she finds work, more or less quickly becomes the object of male desire. Finally, at her wits’ end, she flees the farm where she works and attempts to cross a frozen river. One of the great classic scenes in film history unfolds, a “last-second rescue.”
Lilian Gish in “Way Down East” by David W. Griffith
Colorization of the BW-Photos: JJ
Friday, February 10 2023, 4.00 p.m.
Cinema Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Kaiser-Passage
The Carmen of St. Pauli
Director: Erich Waschneck, 1928, 95 min.
Accompaniment: Leo Perrigo (piano)
Carmen (Jenny Jugo) is a dancer in a seedy dockside tavern with connections to a smuggling ring; her lover, who falls for her in a passionate affair, is actually a dutiful helmsman (Willy Fritsch). The dancer leads him astray. In stark contrast to Mérimée’s novella and Bizet’s opera, this highly watchable film, rich in local color, manages to give the familiar story a happy ending!
“The Carmen of St. Pauli” by Erich Waschneck
© Photo: Collection Josef Jünger
Friday, February 10. 2023, 7.00 p.m.
Stephan-Saal, Ständehausstraße 4
Film Concert 2
Short Film Programm: „Le Bellezze d‘Italia“ and „Paris qui dort“
Total duration: ca. 100 min.
„Ascensione al Cervino“: Director: Mario Piacenza
„Attraverso la Sicilia“ and „Le Bellezze d‘Italia – Trittico di visioni pittoresche“: Director: Piero Marelli
„Through the Valley of the Alb to Sankt Blasien“: Production Company: Weltkinematograph;
„Paris Asleeep“: (OT: Paris qui dort) Director: René Clair.
Musikalische Begleitung: Schüler des Liceo Cavour, Turin; Kompositionen von Studierenden des Conservatorio Verdi, Turin; unter Leitung von Giacomo Pomati; Ludovico Bellucci (Kavier, bei “Paris qui dort”).
Das Kurzfilmprogramm umfasst drei italienische Kurzfilme: “Besteigung des Matterhorns” (1912), “Durch Sizilien” und “Die Schönheiten Italiens – Triptychon pittoresker Bilder” (1910er) sowie einen deutschen Kurzfilm “Durch das Albtal nach Sankt Blasien” (1911) Insbesondere das “Triptychon” ist ein Schlüsselfilm zum Verständnis von “Landschaft im Film”. “Paris qui dort” (1925) schildert eine Stadt-Landschaft, die durch das Experiment eines Wissenschaftlers menschenleer geworden ist. Diese schlafen unter dem Einfluss geheimnisvoller Strahlen.
“Le Bellezze d‘Italia – Trittico di visioni pittoresche”
© Photo: Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Turin
“Paris qui dort” by René Clair
Friday, Feruary 10 2023, 9.30 p.m.
Stephan-Saal, Ständehausstraße 4
The Ladies’ Paradise (OT: Au Bonheur des Dames)
Director: Julien Duvivier, 1929, 89 min.
Accompaniment: Richard Siedhoff (piano) and Mykyta Sierov (Oboe).
Based on the novel by Emile Zola. The young orphan Denise (Dita Parlo) travels from the provinces to Paris to work in her uncle’s small fabric shop. But the shop is struggling to attract customers since a huge department store across the street opened, luring shoppers with rock-bottom prices. While Denise lands a job as a model in the “The Ladies’ Paradise” and falls in love with the owner, the neighborhood’s independent retailers go bankrupt one after another … The department store as an urban microcosm.
“Au Bonheur des Dames” by Julien Duvivier
Saturday, February, 11th, 12.00 am
Stephan-Saal, Ständehausstraße 4
Finis Terrae
Director: Jean Epstein, 1929, 82 min.
Accompaniment: Sabine Zimmer (piano).
This film is set at the end of the world, which is the German meaning of the title. This refers to the outermost Atlantic coast of Brittany. On a small island, inhabited only in summer, four fishermen harvest seaweed. They are the only inhabitants, and when a trivial argument breaks out, it quickly has dramatic consequences. When the inhabitants of the neighboring island see only the smoke from three chimneys, they know that something terrible has happened.
“Finis Terrae” by Jean Epstein
Saturday February 11 2023, 3.00 p.m.
Cinema Kinemathek Karlsruhe, Kaiser-Passage
Mother of Mine (OT: Gribiche)
Director: Jacques Feyder, 1925, 112min.
Accompaniment: Günter Buchwald (piano).
.The working-class boy Gribiche finds a handbag full of money in a department store and returns it to its owner, a wealthy American woman. Madame Maranet is so taken with the boy that she wants to adopt him. His mother reluctantly lets him go, as supporting the boy has been a heavy burden for her since her husband died in the war. Now, however, Gribiche is forced to follow a rigidly structured daily routine, which he strongly opposes. He soon rebels against this merciless regime and runs away back to his mother. She has since married her suitor, but he accepts Gribiche. The Parisian cityscape shapes many scenes of this almost fairytale-like film.
Saturday, February 11 2023, 7.00 p.m.
Stephan-Saal, Ständehausstraße 4
Film Concert 3
The Last of the Mohicans
Director: Clarence Brown, Maurice Tourneur, 1920, 73 min.
Accompanment: Capella Obscura conducted by Cornelia Brugger
Originally from France, Maurice Tourneur directed the film adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper’s famous novel in the USA. The story is set during the war between France and Great Britain in the 18th century. Various Native American tribes are drawn into the conflict on both sides. Tourneur finds poetic imagery for the battles, which are often a matter of life and death, as well as landscapes that serve a significant dramatic function.
Saturday, February 11 2023, 9.00 p.m., Closing Event
Stephan-Saal
Earth (OT: Zemlja)
Director: Oleksandre Dowshenko, 1930, 76 min.
Accompaniment: Trio Transfomer Lui Hui Chun Lin (Violoncello), Sabine Zimmer (piano) and Klaus Roth (Vocals, Percussion)
Made two years before the famine in Ukraine, now known as the Holodomor, the film ultimately deals with the cause of the famine: the forced collectivization ordered by Moscow. Set in a village in the vast Ukrainian landscape, the Dovshenko’s film confronts supporters and opponents of forced collectivization. The arrival of the first tractor in the village triggers the conflict. Dovshenko’s style is unique in film history. He employs cinematic metaphors and finds ingenious camera angles to depict the Ukrainian landscape and its overwhelming vastness.
“Earth” (OT: Zemlja) by Oleksandre Dowshenko
Colorization of the BW-Photo: JJ
Sunday, February 12 2023, 3.00 p.m.
Stephan-Saal, Ständehausstraße 4
Short Films Programm: Silhouette Filme by Lotte Reiniger
Accompaniment: Sai Lento: Reiko Emura (piano) and Shinichi Minami (percussion)
Workshop for children: Susanna Krauthauser.
Besides the beautifully colored film “Cinderella” from 1922, we are showing “The Seemingly Dead Chinese”, “Dr. Dolittle and His Animals: The Journey to Africa”, “Harlequin”, and others. A fascinating collection of films based on fairy tales, fables, and magic stories.
“Cinderella” (1922)
