Wonder Bread. This daily miracle populates the corner store's shelves, but does it transform our breakfast toast into a religious experience? Yes it does, according to Stiletto, one of the 23 West German filmmakers who created the self-proclaimed 'monumental epic' on Jesus Christ called »Jesus der Film«. One hundred sixty-five minutes of deconstruction and nonsense, heresy in cardboard costumes, create a kaleidoscopic picture of the 'Gottessohn' as diverse in style and intention as the German no-budget scene itself.

The project's own history follows the story of Jesus Christ recruiting his apostles. The film's creator Michael Brynntrup is a central and controversial figure of Berlin's vivid independent community. His transgressive obsessions, as well as his capability to smuggle miles of Russian Super8 film-material through East-West customs, gathered a group of believers around him. Individuals and groups from various art factions filled the holy frame, inspired by the Dadaistic idea of an 'ecriture automatique'. From one to another, they passed ideas, material and actors, including Michael Brynntrup himself as the title character.

The Biblical texture serves the film as a scheme enabling the film makers to divide meaning from its historic symbol and to substitute it with contemporary signs. Stiletto's miraculous Bread Multiplication scene presents the soundtrack of an all-star ensemble yelling 'Feed the World' while Jesus' toaster spits fountains of black-burned bread on a Berlin sidewalk. His miraculous Draught of Wishes transforms the fisherman Petrus into a modern working class Berliner enjoying a day off at a recreational lakeside.

Some group's names can be read as a guideline towards their episodes. Such as Schmelzdahin (which translates as 'Melt Away'), a West German group which treats found and self-made footage with bacteria that affects grain and color. Their 'Parables' combines amusement park footage with a female fairytale voice talking about childhood excursions: "We'll ask first and then we'll go to the places that are beautiful. It's always like that, you take so many wrong turns but in the end everything turns out well..." If religion becomes a fairy-tale, the Bible turns into Disneyland.

Other artists who don't normally produce film participated in the Jesus film project. The Berlin performance group 'Die Tödliche Doris' (Deadly Doris) commented on the 'Immaculate Conception'. The exiled Hungarian performer Georg Ladanyi the film with his version of 'in the beginning there was light' in contrast to his bursting performances, which have caused riots or, in one instance, nearly froze the participants to death, his Biblical interpretation operates within minimal means. The West German publishers of Baudrillard and Virilio eat their books during 'St.John's Apocalypse' and one of West Germany's foremost film-critics produced the 'Portrait of 12 year old Jesus' in home-movie tradition.

Various topics from recent underground film occur in the vestments of Christian ceremony. There is gore and vampirism, sex and violence followed by kitsch and melodrama. The owners of independent movie theatres dedicated their contributions to the different movie genres. Doris Kuhn of Munich-based Werkstattkino focused on female eroticism and S/M practices in 'The Purification of Maria Magdalena'. Jörg Buttgereit of Xenon cinema in Berlin, who recently released his first feature film »Necromantic«, laid hands on Jesus Christ during his version of the 'Crucifixion'. Sputnik Cinema's Michael Wehmeyer conjures the imagery of Kenneth Anger. His 'Judas Kiss' portrays the apostles and Jesus prosecuters as rivaling brotherhoods. Shiny, tight leather and lascivious robes move dance-like through the night. The sexual bonding between leader and subjects characterizes both groups as two sides of one coin. As does the kiss between Jesus and Judas.

An unspoken doubt on the traditional Christian imagery transforms some episodes to discourses about the cinema image itself. 'John the Baptist' a piece by the 'Anarchistic Padded Cell', focuses on John's questioning of the Lord's power: "...John might have believed that the Lord could walk on water barefoot, but to cross the sea in a duck made of cardboard?... The holiness of the situation is indicated by a slight fuzziness of the image."

God bless you all.