Special Program: The Exiled Avant-garde
The series of historic films entitled FilmExil, courtesy of the seasoned cooperation with Synema, draws on filmmakers with Austrian roots who were driven out by the National Socialists.
Ernö Metzner: Polizeibericht Überfall © filmexil@synema.at
“A film is art when an independent artist works on it,” according to Alexander Hackenschmied, enthusiastic avant-gardist in Prague of the 1930s and later a trailblazer in independent cinema in the U.S. His pioneering work Bezúčelná procházka offers the start to the historical series. Three programs commemorate several (old-)Austrian filmmakers who shaped innovative cinema in its early days, before they were forced to leave their places of work in Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.
Diagonale 2015 presents:
Program 1
Bezúčelná procházka (Spaziergang ins Blaue, Alexander Hackenschmied, 1930)
Ze soboty na neděli (Von Samstag auf Sonntag, Gustav Machatý, 1931)
Introduction: Brigitte Mayr
Program 2: Subversive Shorts
Polizeibericht Überfall (Ernő Metzner, 1928/29)
Impressionen vom alten Marseiller Hafen (László Moholy-Nagy, 1929)
L’Idée (Berthold Bartosch, 1932)
Im Schatten der Maschine. Ein Montagefilm (Albrecht Viktor Blum, Leo Lania, 1928)
Chasing the Blues (J. D. Chambers, Jack Ellitt, 1947)
Introduction: Michael Omasta
Program 3
The Robber Symphony (Friedrich Feher, GB 1936)
Introduction: Christian Cargnelli