Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub Film Retrospective  

In this short film programme we focus on female figures and voices. Poses and small gestures are used to maximum effect to describe a character and a whole world. History and mythology, the personal and the public, the informal and the monumental all mix and all are honoured. Danièle Huillet spoke of these productive clashes: “Fiction is important for us, because when it is mixed with documentary, or a documentary situation, a contradiction is created and sparks fly.” Mortals and gods clash and jest in two dialogues by Cesare Pavese: The Witches and The Mother. In Corneille/Brecht an epic voice puts the crimes of the Roman general Lucullus on trial in the afterworld. In Lothringen! we see the resistance of a young woman who steps out of the shadows of a war-scarred history in Alsace-Lorraine. In À propos de Venise, the Republic is remembered as a community of people without roots – the voice also asks if these are the strengths and weaknesses that will carry or sink the Europe of our day.

I look forward to seeing these films together, made across three decades in three languages. Lothringen! and Witches are both shot on film, with those dying skills and crafts – Witches is the last film Straub shot on celluloid. Straub’s other shorts made after Danièle’s death are monumental home movies shot on digital video. And Brecht’s text about a mass-murderer always makes me shudder. (Rastko Novaković)

Lothringen!

Directors: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
Screenplay: Danièle Huillet , Jean-Marie Straub, Maurice Barrès
Cinematography: Emmanuelle Collinot, Christophe Pollock
Editing: Danièle Huillet
Sound: Louis Hochet, Georges Vaglio
Music: Amadeus Quartet, Joseph Haydn
Producer: Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, Peter Brugger, Martine Marignac
Production: Straub-Huillet Films, Saarländischer Rundfunk, Pierre Grise Productions
France, 1994, 21 min.

The Witches, Women among Themselves

Director: Jean-Marie Straub
Screenplay: Cesare Pavese
Cinematography: Renato Berta
Editing: Jean-Marie Straub
Sound: Julien Sicart
Music: Ludwig Van Beethoven

Producer: Martine Marignac

Production: Pierre Grise Productions, Straub-Huillet Films

France, Italy, 2009, 21 min.

Mother

Director: Jean-Marie Straub

Screenplay: Cesare Pavese

Cinematography: Christophe Clavert

Editing: Christophe Clavert, Jean-Marc Degardin

Sound: Jérôme Ayasse, Jean-Pierre Laforce, Gaël Blondet

Music: Gustav Mahler

Production: Straub-Huillet Films

Italy, 2011, 20 min.

Corneille/Brecht

Director: Cornelia Geiser, Jean-Marie Straub

Screenplay: Bertolt Brecht, Pierre Corneille

Producer: Jean-Marie Straub

Production: Straub-Huillet Films

France, 2009, 26 min.

À Propos de Venise

Director: Jean-Marie Straub

Screenplay: Maurice Barrès

Cinematography: Christophe Clavert

Editing: Christophe Clavert

Sound: Gaël Blondet, Dimitri Haulet, Jean-Pierre Laforce

Producer: Arnaud Dommerc, Barbara Ulrich

Production: Belva Film GmbH, Andolfi

France, Switzerland, 2013, 23 min.