Retrospective – Walter Ruttmann

Each year in Top League we present works of one of the most prominent filmmakers in the world. This year at Szczecin European Film Festival we give you the retrospective of Walter Ruttmann – artist, visionary, director believed to be one of the most creative mind in German abstract and experimental film.

Graduate painter and architect of the Universities of Zurich and Munich. Along with Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling he experimented with abstract filmmaking for some time. After 1925 Ruttmann decided to end his activities in this area, and directed his passion towards the exploration of film editing techniques. He is most famous for “Berlin: Symphony of a Big City” from 1927. Ruttmann later became part of the Nazi propaganda apparatus. He worked with Leni Riefenstahl, with whom he wrote the script to “Triumph of the Will.” He is also one of the cinematographers for “Metropolis” and “The Nibelungs” by Fritz Lang. Died in the battlefield during World War II, making a film chronicle about the western front.

Apart from his most famous film “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City,” Ruttmann is also the author of such films as “Melody of the World,” “Weekend,” and numerous animated short films. To put it briefly: a program for the real connoisseurs of film.

Come and see.

 

1. Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt / Berlin: Symphony of the Big City

2. Melodie der Welt / Melodie świata / Melody of the World

3. Weekend

4. In der Nacht / In the night

5. Short films  1921-1925

a Lichtspiel Opus I   

b Opus II

c Opus III

d Opus IV 

6. Advertisements    

a Der Sieger/  The winner

b Das Wunder / The wonder

c Das wiedergefundene Paradies / Paradise regained

d Der Aufstieg / The climb

e Spiel der Wellen / Play of the waves

f „Dort, wo der Rhein…” / „There, where Rhine...”   

 

The organisers of Szczecin European Film Festival 2014 would like to thank Goethe-Institut as well as the German Reading Room and Lending Library at the Pomeranian Library for lending us films from Filmarchiv Prag and agreeing to their screening during the Festival.German Reading Room and Lending Library (partner: Goethe-Institut)

German Reading Room and Lending Library is a partner to the Goethe Institute and is situated at the Pomeranian Library in Szczecin. It provides information to anyone seeking it and offers a wide choice of books, audio-visual media and press in German. The collection includes encyclopaedias, dictionaries, current publications on culture, social issues, and politics, a choice of German classics, contemporary German fiction, literature for children and youth, latest German language course books, didactic materials for learning and teaching German. The library also offers German audiobooks, music from Germany, and German films. It helps those who are learning German, recommends didactic materials to teachers, course books for school pupils and students, books for children and youth, as well as good literature for those who enjoy reading in Goethe's language. The Library's activity promotes German literature and language, as well as the latest phenomena of European culture. We invite you to visit the online library of Goethe-Institut.
 

 

 

          

 

 

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