Michael Brynntrup | film video etc

3rd Bangkok Experimental Film Festival 21. November - 22. Dezember 2001 November 21st - December 22nd, 2001 Aktueller Deutscher Experimentalfilm [beim BEFF] Recent German Experimental Film [at BEFF] (curated by Gerhard Büttenbender and Michael Brynntrup)

Programm 4 | program 4

Werkschau Michael Brynntrup | Portrait
(ein Einblick) | (an insight)
8 filme/video | 88 min

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]

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)

DER HIERONYMUS - Totentanz 6
THE HIERONYMUS - Death Dance 6
7 Min. | 1989 | Super8 + 16mm | col | sound [MBCFILM#25]

"Gravediggers: species of beetles, black, live off cadavers of small animals, which they roll into balls."
{Information sheet of the film, 1989}

In 1988 he began work on a cycle of 'Totentanzes', Death Dances, eight in all, gathered beneath the title Der Elephant Aus Elfenbein (The Ivory Elephant, 45 min 1988-93). Together they unfold a catalogue of psychodramatic rituals, a series of theme and variations Bach might have named The Art of the Skull. Photographed entirely in super-8, each figures a single performer, a skull, and a specific arena of interaction.
(Millenium Film Journal No. 30/31, Fall 1997 - Mike Hoolboom)

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

You know very well, that nowadays many countries produce films in their own language ... (original with subtitles).
{Information sheet of the film, 1991}

"You know that every film has its own language ... " Brynntrup delves into the riddle of language, communication and desire through cleverly amusing portrayal of a telephone call between a man and a woman.
(Information The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film, 1992 - Karen Lund)

Safe sex in the 70ies. Bigger than life in 35mm. All you can eat in 5 minutes.
{Information sheet of the film, 1993}

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)

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)

TABU V (wovon man nicht sprechen kann)
TABU V (About Which One Cannot Speak)
13 Min. | 1998 | 16mm | col | sound [MBCFILM#52]
(Tagebuchfilm) | (film diary)

About which one cannot speak, one must make films.
(loosely based on Ludwig Wittgenstein)
{Information sheet of the film, 1998}

TABU V plays with the medium of film in a light-hearted and inquisitive manner; a concentrated, intelligent and multilayered film in which wit is juxtaposed assuredly with profound, searching analysis.
(New York Film Academy Award - Best Short Film, Panorama 1998)

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)

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)

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 50 experimental short films and videos since 1981, two 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. Several guest lectures. Since 1990, guest lectures workshops, project advising and apprenticeship counselling in the area of media production. 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 50 Filme und Video (davon zwei 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. 1993 Stipendiat des Kunstfonds e.V. Bonn. Publikationen zu den Themen Super-Acht und berliner Off-Off-Kinos. Seit 1990 Workshops, Projektbetreuung und Ausbildertätigkeit im Bereich Medienproduktion. 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.