Michael Brynntrup | film video etc

PINK FILM FESTIVAL Manila Quezon City, Philippines 03. Juni - 22. Juni 2005 3rd June - 22nd June 2005

Werkschau | Queer Films by Michael Brynntrup
(8 film/video | 77 min | 1991 - 2004)
04.06.2005, 9:00 pm, Gateway Cineplex 10, Cinema 6
07.06.2005, 6:30 pm, Gateway Cineplex 10, Cinema 5

Michael Brynntrup has been a vital and very active part of the German underground over 15 years, having completed numerous experimental features (including the Super8 feature »Jesus - der Film«...) and an incredibly strong body of short personal works. Working from a decidedly queer bent, Brynntrup often integrates a personal diaristic strategy, using humour and pathos to subvert and stimulate while creating films which are both intimate and visually stunning.
(The Blinding Light!!, program notes, Vancouver, Fall 1999 - Alex MacKenzie) [more] [deutsch]

LIEBE, EIFERSUCHT UND RACHE
LOVE, JEALOUSY AND REVENGE
7 Min. | 1991 | 16mm | col | sound [MBCFILM#35]
(Lehrfilm) | (educational film)

Du weißt ganz genau, daß jetzt viele Länder Filme in ihrer Sprache herstellen ... (Original mit Untertiteln). - You know that every film has its own language ... (subtitled original)
{Informationsblatt zum Film, 1991}
You know very well, that nowadays many countries produce films in their own language ... (original with subtitles).
{Information sheet of the film, 1991}

The witty »Love, Jealousy and Revenge« explores the mobile meanings of language in film with the help of sophisticated telecommunications; an aural/oral offering.
(Hygiene and Hysteria Tour Program, UK 1994 - Sarah Turner, Ian Rashid)

This film is based upon true occurrences. Any resemblance to individuals, dead or alive, is not only intentional, but unavoidable. - The viewer is also responsible for images made public. - Excerpts from my Diary and the relevant books of German law.
{Information sheet of the film, 1996}

Noted German experimental filmmaker Michael Brynntrup tantalizes us with his diaristic account of his many lovers. What seems at first to be an extended exercise in ego, gradually becomes a powerful social record of gay life in the years spanning gay liberation and the aids-crisis.
(Best Experimental Work / New Screen Section, Images Festival of Independent Film and Video Toronto 1998)

Photographer Jürgen Baldiga (1959-1993) and filmmaker Michael Brynntrup, - privat discourses and personal investigations of how to deal with images of life and death.
{Information sheet of the film, 1995}

»Aide Mémoire«, a 16-minute short, is decidedly not a documentary about Baldiga's life and work. Twice Brynntrup visits his friend at home, who is sick with AIDS, to ask a few informal questions and to get him on tape. This "Gay Document for Remembering" ("Schwules Gedächtnisprotokoll"), as Brynntrup subtitles the film, is full of gaps: it reproduces few of Baldiga's photographs and mentions only a couple of dates from his life, one of which is his death in December 1993. This reticence, even omission, makes the photographer's life seem all the more transient and the loss that much more poignant.
(Alice Kuzniar, "The Queer German Cinema", Stanford University Press, July 2000)

NY 'NY 'n why not
NY 'NY 'n why not
4 Min. | 1999 | 35mm | col | stereo [MBCFILM#53]
(Musikfilm) | (music film)

WALK / DON'T WALK / WALK. The rhythm of the nineties.
A music stroll along Christopher Street.
{Information sheet of the film, 1999}

The Jury Award is in recognition of the exceptional quality and diversity of gay and lesbian German films in this year´s Berlinale. Beginning with the inspiring selection of »AIMÉE & JAGUAR«, the first lesbian film to open the Berlinale; to (...) »NY 'NY 'N WHY NOT«, these five German films brilliantly represent the gay and lesbian community and the talent of German film-makers on the world stage.
(Special TEDDY Award 1999, International Berlin Film Festival PANORAMA)

There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.
(Immanuel Kant, Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, opening sentence)
Born in the body (...and in time...)
{Information sheet of the film, 2001}

Certainly even today some viewers will be affected by this work. Respect for the true art of filmmaking demanded that even the closeup be kept in, where a razor slices through an eye.
(Warning introduction to the German archival copy of UN CHIEN ANDALOU)

TV-X-PERM. (mein Schwulsein als Auftragsarbeit)
TV-X-perm. (Being Queer As A Commission)
3:20 Min. | 2002 | DV | col | sound [MBCFILM#57]
(TV Portraitfilm) | (TV film portrait)

My Gay Self-Portrait For Arte TV. Being queer as a commission. Elastic Reality[TM] as program.
{Information sheet of the film, 2002}

Cela dit, il existe aujourd'hui outre-Rhin des cinéastes gays qui, vu l'évolution des m&brkbar;urs, n'hésitent plus à se référer à leur sexualité dans leur travail cinématographique.
Court-circuit a donné carte blanche aux trois cinéaste allemands Michael Brynntrup, Ades Zabel et Philip Brüning, qui thématisent leur homosexualité sous des facettes très différentes.
(http://www.arte-tv.com/emission/emission.jsp?node=27207&lang=fr - June 2002)

BLUE BOX BLUES (die Inszenierung einer Fotografie)
BLUE BOX BLUES (Staging a Photo Shoot)
7:40 min | 2004 | DV | col | stereo [MBCFILM#63]
(Fotofilm) | (photo flick)

How long does a twinkling of an eye last...?
What all happens in a moment...?
Slap in a snap - a document of directing and a video on the half-life of still photos.
{Information sheet of the film, 2004}

IPANEMA lip-synch
IPANEMA lip-synch
3:15 Min. | 2003 | DV | col | stereo [MBCFILM#61]
(Karaoke Video) | (karaoke video)

Who is this thing...? Who is that girl...?
Who is "The Girl From Ipanema"...?
And: who sings the song...? - A Queer Karaoke Video.
{Information sheet of the film, 2003}

Dank an | thanks to:

and Mr. Jörn Hartmann, Berlin, for technical support.

Michael Brynntrup
Short-Biography

Born in Münster, Germany, 1959. Studied in Freiburg, Rome and Berlin. Master degree Fine Arts at the Braunschweig School of Art in 1991. Experimental poems, texts, paintings, fotography, fotocopies, performances, installations and exhibitions since 1977. Over 60 experimental short films and videos since 1981, four feature films. Digital art in interactive media since 1995 (CD-ROM and internet).

Film exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art New York (1987, 1992 and 1999). Numerous international exhibitions and film awards. Organisation of avantgarde and gay film events for museums, institutions and international film festivals. Publications on Super8 and Off-Off-Cinemas. Since 1990, guest lectures workshops, project advising and apprenticeship counselling in the area of media production. Guest lecturer on Experimental Film and Interactive Media (e.g. at Merz Akademie Stuttgart). - The artist lives and works.

Personal notice: As an independant 'experimental' film-maker who sees his task in particular in a medial self-reflection (film as metafilm) I try to lead films in all its different forms to contextual and technical borders. (And naturally I make the viewers come along to these borders). I comprehend film in its essence not as a mass media but as an individual experience which takes place in the head of each viewer.

Michael Brynntrup
Kurz-Biografie

Geboren 1959 in Münster/Westfalen, Studium Kunstgeschichte und Philosophie in Freiburg und Rom. Seit 1982 in Berlin, 1987-91 Studium Freie Kunst (Filmklasse der HBK Braunschweig), 1991 Meisterschüler. Diverse Künste und Copyart seit 1977. Über 60 Filme und Video (davon vier Langfilme) seit 1981. Digitale Künste in interaktiven Medien seit 1995 (CD-ROM und internet).

'Film exhibition' im Museum of Modern Art New York (1987, 1992 und 1999). Zahlreiche Werkschauen, viele Filmpreise, Organisation und Präsentation von Experimentalfilm-Reihen im In- und Ausland. Stipendiat des Kunstfonds e.V. Bonn (1993) und des Kulturfonds Berlin (2002). Publikationen zu den Themen Super-Acht und berliner Off-Off-Kinos. Seit 1990 Workshops, Lehraufträge, Projektbetreuung und Ausbildertätigkeit im Bereich Medienproduktion. Gastdozenturen f¸r experimentellen Film und interaktive Medien (u.a. an der Merz Akademie Stuttgart). - Der Künstler lebt und arbeitet.

Persönliche Anmerkung: Als unabhängiger 'experimenteller' Filmemacher, der seine Aufgabe vor allem in einer medialen Selbstreflektion sieht (Film als Metafilm), versuche ich, Film in allen seinen Erscheinungsformen an dessen inhaltliche und technische Grenzen zu führen. (Und selbstverständlich nehme ich den Zuschauer immer mit an diese Grenzen). - Ich begreife Film in seinem Wesenskern nicht als Massenmedium, sondern als individuelles Erlebnis, das sich vor allem in den Köpfen jedes einzelnen Zuschauers abspielt.