Short Psychogeographic Short Film Festival
13.5.2017
A screening presented by Pirate Cinema Berlin
"Short" is the only term we can vouch for: If you can give it 100 minutes, you'll be good. But "Psychogeographic Film"? From all we can tell, no such thing exists; it's barely a rumor, not even a joke. The art of drinking too much and then leaving the bar ("psychogeography") has made no contribution to the story of film, other than the misleading name of a missing genre. Some see Guy Debord's early shorts, "Sur le passage..." and "Critique de la séparation", as its foundation, but no-one who has seen them has seen more than its ruins; no-one would claim this is "film". And the rest is not "history", which is why our journey doesn't begin with an ethnographic study of Munich in the 1950s – that's already a detour – and why, when it comes to a sudden halt on a Berlin street corner in 1967, our voyage has barely begun. Fifteen years later, Patrick Keiller will pick up the camera in North West London; he won't do much with it, just enough to not leave any doubt. There is nothing to see here, unless you insist. And even though these six pieces clearly speak to each other, they do so in a language that is not, has never been, and will not be for the foreseeable future, the language of cinema.
Menschen im Espresso
Herbert Vesely
DE 1958 16 min 235 MB
Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps
Guy Debord
FR 1959 19 min 260 MB
Critique de la séparation
Guy Debord
FR 1961 17 min 262 MB
Subjektitüde
Helke Sander
DE 1967 4 min 51 MB
Stonebridge Park
Patrick Keiller
UK 1981 20 min 245 MB
Norwood
Patrick Keiller
UK 1983 25 min 305 MB
Black & white
English subs
Copies to go
Pirate Cinema (https://piratecinema.org), named after a widespread problem with intellectual property, was founded in 2004. As of today, it has hosted around 200 screenings – usually in Berlin, but occasionally elsewhere.
