Michael Brynntrup | film video etc

São Paulo International Short Film Festival 28. August - 06. September 2003 August 28th - September 06th, 2003 Visite in Brasilien \| visit in Brazil (supported by Goethe-Institut São Paulo and Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes München)

Werkschau Michael Brynntrup | 'Retrospective'
September 1, 2003 - 21h, Espaço Unibanco - Sala 4, Rua Augusta, 1470
September 5, 2003 - 22h, Museu da Imagem e do Som - MIS, Av. Europa, 158
(89 min | 6 films | 16mm + 35mm | 1990 - 2002)

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]

Programm | program

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)

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

Du weißt ganz genau, daß jetzt viele Länder Filme in ihrer Sprache herstellen ... (Original mit Untertiteln). - You know that every film has its own language ... (subtitled original)
{Informationsblatt zum Film, 1991}
You know very well, that nowadays many countries produce films in their own language ... (original with subtitles).
{Information sheet of the film, 1991}

The witty »Love, Jealousy and Revenge« explores the mobile meanings of language in film with the help of sophisticated telecommunications; an aural/oral offering.
(Hygiene and Hysteria Tour Program, UK 1994 - Sarah Turner, Ian Rashid)

This film is based upon true occurrences. Any resemblance to individuals, dead or alive, is not only intentional, but unavoidable. - The viewer is also responsible for images made public. - Excerpts from my Diary and the relevant books of German law.
{Information sheet of the film, 1996}

Noted German experimental filmmaker Michael Brynntrup tantalizes us with his diaristic account of his many lovers. What seems at first to be an extended exercise in ego, gradually becomes a powerful social record of gay life in the years spanning gay liberation and the aids-crisis.
(Best Experimental Work / New Screen Section, Images Festival of Independent Film and Video Toronto 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)

Immanuel Kant Hospital in Neukölln, Berlin. Midnight. A patient is being admitted. TV journalists are on the spot. The beginning of a story that tells itself. And a self-portrait in broadcast and artistic media.
{Information sheet of the film, 2002}

For many viewers of TV and cinema, independent film is indigestible or even trash. But these little pearls of screen-culture are quite appealing and attract an enthusiastic audience.
{SAT.1 Regional Report, Baden-Württemberg, Originally broadcast on Jan 4th, 1996}

One film - two originals: the internet version in online quality (www.brynntrup.de/nofilm) and the 35mm version: coming soon to a film festival near you! - "Film is no longer what it should have been." (Rhythm in the age of its digital producability, - an oscilloscope loosely based on Eadweard Muybridge).
{Information sheet of the film, 2000}

Brynntrup's film that actually is not a film (and therefore on 35mm) reproduces the motions of the human body, alluding to 100 years of filmmaking. Now follows -apocalyptically spoken- the odyssey as a computer-controlled dream.
(catalogue Circles-Of-Confusion, Berlin 2001 - Thomas Kliche)

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. Since 1990, guest lectures workshops, project advising and apprenticeship counselling in the area of media production. Currently guest lecturer at Artschool Braunschweig and at Merz Akademie Stuttgart. - 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. Stipendiat des Kunstfonds e.V. Bonn (1993) und des Kulturfonds Berlin (2002). Publikationen zu den Themen Super-Acht und berliner Off-Off-Kinos. Seit 1990 Workshops, Lehraufträge, Projektbetreuung und Ausbildertätigkeit im Bereich Medienproduktion. Zur Zeit: Gastdozent an der HBK Braunschweig und an der Merz Akademie Stuttgart. 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.