Marion Kellmann
Filmmaker & Visual Artist
.. und der Sünder bereut (Heimatfilm)
experimental film
Nominated for Best Experimental Film 2023
by German Film Critics Association
supported by
Heimatfilm is a compilation movie using scenes from 50 films of the genre of Heimatfilm. Between the end of World War II and 1960 over 300 Heimatfilme were made. The genre experienced its heyday in West Germany during this time. The scheme of the films is simple: the plot typically consists of a love story that eventually arrives at a happy end, following a few misunderstandings and the appearance of a villain.
Heimatfilme divide people into the categories of good and bad. The crimes and conflicts shown are usually harmless cases of poaching or smuggling. The local authorities consist of forest rangers, doctors, pastors, and the like. Police and state authorities hardly ever appear. These are replaced by the intrinsic moral compass residing in regular townspeople, and the villain either repents or dies under unfortunate circumstances. At first glance, the Heimatfilm phenomenon seems quite easy to explain psychologically. After years of war, people deeply longed for an ideal world. The films present simple love stories set in unspoiled nature and a flourishing countryside offering an escape from reality and the conflicting memories of the recent past – far from the ruined cities. Recollections of the Third Reich are completely left aside. Yet the Heimatfilm is not an invention of the late 1940s or 50s, but rather closely related in terms of content and motifs to the mountain films of the 1920s as well as the “blood and soil” films of the Third Reich. That is why films from the 30s and 40s are also interwoven into the compilation movie.
The plot of Heimatfilm follows the classic pattern of the love stories of this genre. The film focuses on the typical characters and themes. Side plots are avoided. The film’s characters are portrayed by various performers. Similar scenes appear again and again with minimal changes and are maintained and carried on by the different protagonists. By repeating similar scenes and gestures as well as merging the Heimatfilme into their unvarnished plot, the genre’s essence is revealed and condensed into a stereotype.
Ekstase
experimental film
supported by
“Ekstase” is a montage of scenes from various silent films. Based on similar settings and gestures it explores the stereotype of women on the verge of insanity. In a repetitive montage the same symptoms and actions recur repeatedly in different places, different sceneries and with different people. In the beginning there is a tranquil montage of women sleeping. Waking up they realize in despair that they are captives in their bedrooms. An outburst of rage results in sudden weakness, and men rush to help them. The women are then carried away and are treated through hypnosis and suggestion. This is followed by an attack of hysteria, similar to the ones that are captured in Charcot`s „Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière“. This collection of photographs had also been the starting point for Marion Kellmann’s research in various European film archives.
At the end of the 19th century neurological science looked to find a key to hysteria and ways for the classification of this phenomenon. Jean-Martin Charcot, chief of the Salpêtrière clinic in Paris, became an expert of high renown in this field. He claimed that the hysteric woman would be the man-machine, once described by the physician and philosopher La Mettrie. Charcot believed that every hysteric attack followed a structure of four different phases that could be provoked and repeated through suggestion and hypnosis. In order to prove this he decided to let his patients and their attacks be photographed which resulted in the „Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière“. Charcot presented himself as the director of this spectacle. The images of the women who
obeyed his rules like actresses became famous across the globe.
At the turn of the century hysteria had become a fashionable disease. Its symptoms could be in found in various art forms, but especially in silent films. „Ekstase“ mirrors the genesis of hysteria. Looked at it from today, the view of women’s mental state has its comical side as well. The film’s montage suggests that the spectacle of the emotionally unstable women seems to be automated and controllable. The manipulation becomes visible and the diagnosis turns against itself.
Die siderische Nacht
experimental film
When the earth ceased to turn on its own axis one side lost its sunlight.
As no one knew how the planet might be set in motion again
people lived in darkness. One day, a man found out how the sun’s light could be replaced.
I'm glad if I'm happy
documentary
supported by
In his work, from the early ‘70s until today, Endre Tót questions not only the communistic system of the East, but also capitalism in the West. He takes an ironical stance against every form of prescribed happiness. In this the artist’s point of view is autobiographically informed. Tót, whose works are to be found in the most important collections of the world, is a witness of his time. The film “ENDRE TÓT – I’m glad if I’m happy” is a complex portrait, presented through conversations with the artist on the basis of his work and through original film documentation of his actions. At the centre of the film is Art Informel in Hungary, navigating border restrictions through mail art, the internationality of conceptual art & Fluxus and the philosophy of absence. The film accompanies the artist, who grew old and famous in exile, through his actions and in his neighbourhood in Cologne.
Trinkhallen
experimental documentary
31 german Kiosks are shown in tableau like images,
capturing moments in the area of the Ruhrgebiet.
Each Kiosk is shot from a static point of view. The lengths of
the single takes are given by the Bolexcamera’s manual wind
up mechanism. The soundtrack of the film is an extracted
accoustic description of the locations.
Die Umschulung
Science fiction or reality?
A film team accompanies a perpetually unemployed man while
he participates in an occupational retraining as a cartoon figure.
It could be his last one…
Im Verleih Interfilm Berlin