Michael Brynntrup | film video etc

FILMTOUR FERNOST \| Film Tour Far East Oct 15th - Nov 24th, 2015 Saigon International Film School (November 14, 2015) [ supported by the Goethe-Institute Vietnam and the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK) ]

Werkschau Michael Brynntrup | Portrait Michael Brynntrup

[ 81 min | 1983-2010 | 8 filmvideo ]

Sat, 14.11.2015, 14.00-16.00h - HCMC, Saigon International Film School

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL: MICHAEL BRYNNTRUP

Being used to a certain aesthetic presented in mainstream TV and cinema, people often find experimental short films strange and hard to digest. However the personal works of Michael Brynntrup, one of the most profilic German filmmakers working mainly on the underground circuit, are regarded as small jewels of cinematic culture that are very appealing and attract enthusiastic audiences.

Michael Brynntrup often performs the leading role in his movies. Yet his films are different than the films originating from an autobiographical filmmaking tradition in North America who use private lives as a form of artistic expression. When Michael Brynntrup exposes his subjectivity, it's not a one-to-one representation and he addreses always the human being in general. His films can be seen as experimental reflections of a narcissistic artist who presents himself as a man portraying himself to others who are supposed to recognise themselves in him.

"I see cinema, in essence, not as mass media, but as an individual experience that takes place in the mind of each viewer." (Michael Brynntrup) He leaves the audience to decide on the ambivalence of his work and to reflect on themselves while identifying with the exposed character in the film. As an experimental and independent filmmaker who sees his work as a medial self-reflection (film as metafilm) and working from a gay male perspective, he tries to direct his films to different contextual and technical limits. How well can reality be presented? What limits do morals and the media set? Despite his preoccupation with heavy existential themes of death and personal identity in his work, his vision is often ironic. He is able to integrate a personal diaristic strategy using humour and pathos to subvert, to create films which are both intimate and visually stunning.

(Tampere International Short Film Festival, catalogue 2004 - Maarit Jaakkola)

Between an overgrown West Berlin graveyard and a desolate stretch of land under communist rule, there is a supposedly dead no-man's land. - Around noon, the main character arrives at this inevitable place.
{Information sheet of the film, 1983}

At the start of 1983, Brynntrup joined forces with almost twenty filmmakers, artists, musicians, and others active in the squatter cinema movement to form the collective OYKO. [...] On July 17, 1983 in the Hasenheide park in Kreuzberg, OYKO put on their first public event: a five screen – better, a five bed sheet – open air projection of super-8 films accompanied by live music. Such an expanded cinema event was not untypical in the super-8 world, in which innovative and performative modes of film exhibition flourished.
(Marc Siegel, "Reflections on Arriving [...]", In: "West Berlin Film in the ‘80s", b_books verlag, Berlin, 2008)

The biblical prohibition of images word for word. God's life story in the form of a trailer: from zero B.C. to the Second Coming of Christ - coming soon.
{Information sheet of the film, 1986}

Brynntrup even went so far as to make a special promotional short for »JESUS« called »VERONIKA«. As well as raising theological questions on the Turin Shroud, »VERONIKA« divulges the best way to knock a nail through the hand; how to experience eternal mysteries anew, and that yes, He is coming "to this theatre - soon." - Still no joy with the Catholic church.
(Headpress Manchester, 3/91 - David Kerekes)

DIE STATIK DER ESELSBRÜCKEN
THE STATICS - Engineering Memory Bridges
21 min | 1990 | 16mm | bw | sound [MBCFILM#32]
(Filmpuzzle) | (puzzle film)

Rests and tests from the inquiry into prototypes.
Formal proofs through pregnant experiments on one's own body.
{Information sheet of the film, 1990}

Test cards, doodlings, film techniques and visual experiments - the mechanics of film itself form the narrative of »Die Statik der Eselsbrücken«. And again, the result is hypnotic.
(headpress Manchester, 3/91 - David Kerekes)

Using found footage from the early 70s porn films, Michael Brynntrup creates a humorous and titillating moving collage of mediated erotic imagery - one that keeps promising the viewer always anticipated cum shot, as well as asking the question, "How 'graphic' does an image have to be before it comes pornographic?"
(Mix '95 New York, Festival Catalogue)

»All You Can Eat« by Michael Brynntrup takes the 'cum-shot' to new heights with a montage of some of the wildest, orgasmic, facial expressions ever composed to a mellow, easy listening sound track.
(Boys On Film No.6, cover text, dangerous to know 1996)

A medium is not an abbreviation that brings one thing to another, but rather a third added to two. A medium is not static, not a bridge, but develops a life of its own whenever activated.
The ECG of metempsychosis (from the genes to the zodiac).
Electrographics of the 4th Dimension.
{Information sheet of the film, 1996}

»Herzsofort.Setzung« is under no cirumstances a mindless rehearsal of various mediaforms. In spite of different forms like Super8, CD-Rom, VHS-Video, colour copy or computer print, that are presented sometimes in an absurd manner, the single generation of the pictures are linked by the pleasure lying in - the uncertainty of the process, also in the formulation of the question. What remains from the transformed man after his bath in the media?
(Filmwinter, Festival Catalogue 1996 - Ulrich Wegenast)

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)

The Hong Kong Showcase (eine Fallstudie)
The Hong Kong Showcase (a case study)
3:20 min | 2005 | DV | col | stereo [MBCFILM#64]
(minikino) | (micro movie)

“The world is everything that is the showcase.”
Living in a globalized world - a case study.
(loosely based on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, sentence no.1)
{Information sheet of the film, 2005}

The Emporio Armani shop window in Hong Kong is a small theatre of the global fashion industry. At night, a window cleaner sways across the stage, accompanied by classical Chinese music.
(http://www.idfa.nl/idfa_en_filmdescription.asp?filmid=27497, October 2006)

No Facebook! Just homepage.
A corporate video on the 11th anniversary of my website on the 'Digital Day', 10-10-10.
{Information sheet of the film, 2007}