Fassbinder still alive – Symposia in Munich
INSPIRATION – PRODUCTION – TRANSFORMATION
On the weekend of March 23-25, the Fassbinder Festival marking the 30th anniversary of the filmmaker’s death reaches its initial highpoint at Munich’s Residenztheater.
On Friday, March 23 INSPIRATION will be the focus of a discursive examination. It begins with a screening of Christoph Schlingensief’s 1996 film DIE 120 TAGE VON BOTTROP – DER LETZTE NEUE DEUTSCHE FILM (The 120 Days of Bottrop – The Last New German Film), an homage to RWF that reunites a number of Fassbinder family members in front of the camera. The screening will be following by a discussion exploring Fassbinder’s influence on theater-makers today. Panel members include Karlheinz Braun, co-founder of the Verlag der Autoren, Martin Kušej, artistic director of the Residenztheater, Bibiana Beglau, leading actress in the Residenztheater production of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Tine Lanik, recipient of the young director’s award given by the journal Theater heute for her production of Tropfen auf heiße Steine (Water Drops on Burning Rocks) and Dušan David Parízek, director of Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod (Trash, the City and Death) in Prague and Munich.
On Saturday, March 24 PRODUCTION will be theme of a lecture by Michael Töteberg and the discussion following it. Entitled ““antiteater or: ‘Dissecting everything into its individual parts and reconstructing it must be wonderful’”, Töteberg’s paper looks at Fassbinder’s beginnings in the theater in1967/68. It will be followed by a panel discussion on the theme of “Fassbinder’s ‘Family’: collective art production in theater and film” moderated by the president of the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, Juliane Lorenz. Panel members include: Hanna Schygulla, Irm Hermann, Juliane Lorenz, Michael Töteberg and Claudia Blank, director of the German Theater Museum Munich. The discussion will be followed by a screening of BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE (1970).
Sunday, March 25 is to be devoted to TRANSFORMATION. In Radu Gabrea’s film A MAN LIKE EVA (1983/84), the actress Eva Mattes embodies the character of RWF. The screening will be followed by a dialogue between Michael Töteberg und Eva Mattes around the question: What does it mean to be ‘another’?
The Fassbinder Festival was launched by Martin Kušej’s production at the Residenztheater of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, which has already attracted numerous reviews:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 4, 2012, “Liebesscherbentänzer im Aquarium” by Gerhard Stadelmaier
Münchner Merkur, March 4, 2012, “Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant: Premierenkritik” by Michael Schleicher
Abendzeitung München, March 4, 2012, “Bibiana Beglau kommt, und wird alles anders” by Mathias Hejny
Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 5, 2012, “Wie wir begehren” by Christine Dössel
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 7, 2012, “Großes Weibertrara mit Fassbinder im Münchner Marstall” von Gerhard Stadelmaie
Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 10, 2012, “null acht neun Unser Mann im Legendenhimme”l by Christine Dössel
Photos: Bibiana Beglau as Petra von Kant, 2012 © Hans Jörg Michel / Residenztheater Munich