HAPPY LAMENTO
O.V. German, Tagalog adn English subtitle in Spanish and English
Kluge, a forerunner of the New German Cinema and author of books such as Cinema Stories, at the age of 86 and with the Philippine Khavn, has made one of the freest, most radical films that you’ll see this year. And this is how he describes it, if you can describe the indescribable: “It’s a peculiar musical film. The central core of the film has to do with electric light, the circus, the song “Blue Moon” and the savage street wars between gangs of children in the north of Manila”. Trump, elephants, the poet Ann Cotton in the role of King Kong and several astral journeys complete this fascinating filmic object for the new generations.
Direction: Alexander Kluge, Feat. Khavn De La Cruz
Script: Alexander Kluge, Feat. Khavn De La Cruz
Cinematography: Thomas Willke, Albert Banzon, Thomas Mauch, Erich Harandt
Editing: Andres Kern, Kajetan Forstner, Roland Forstner, Toni Werner Music: Khavn De La Cruz
Sound: Michael Kurz, Stephan Holl, Toni Werner
Cast: Helge Schneider, Heiner Müller, Galina Antoschewskaja, Peter Berling
Production: Alexander Kluge, Stephan Holl
Production Company: Kairos-Film, Rapid Eye Movies, Feat. Khavn De La Cruz
Alexander Kluge
He is a fundamental director in the history of European cinema, an intellectual of note, writer and philosopher. Born in Halberstadt in 1932, he survived the bombing that destroyed his city in 1945. In his youth in Germany he collaborated with T. W. Adorno and made his debut in film as assistant to Fritz Lang. In 1962 he was one of the signatories of the famous Oberhausen Manifesto, starting point of the New German Cinema. His first film, Yesterday Girl, won the Silver Lion in Venice in 1966. Since then, he has constructed an extensive filmography with milestones such as his monumental 9-hour film from 2008 From Ideological Antiquity: Marx/Eisenstein/Capital, where he took up Eisenstein’s idea of filming Das Kapital. As a writer, he is one of the leading German authors of the end of the 20th Century. Some of his titles translated into Spanish are Novedades de la antigüedad ideológica, El hueco que deja el diablo, El contexto de un jardín and 120 historias del cine. He is also the founder of the television production company DCTP, which makes cultural content for television. Happy Lamento, his latest film (in which he collaborates with the Filipino Khavn de la Cruz), premiered at Venice.