

User Score
4 votes
Brandenburg, near the Polish border; it all started with a toothache. Then the boss called to say he was needed. Extra Duty - to guard a gangster for the night in an emergency ward. Konzak was sorry he ever became a cop. Besides, the prisoner was a moody boxer-type, and the room at the hospital was like in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Sweat was already dripping down his back when the night nurse stopped by on her rounds. A sway of the hips.. the look in her eye...she was a real knockout. Konzak forgot the toothache and the prisoner...
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
DE

Before the three feature films, Mario Schifano directs the camera towards the people around him to create real film diaries. His friends, his time partner and the artists he frequented are portrayed in their everyday life or object of the mechanical gaze of the camera, a filter through which to look at the outside world.
"This piece, with the generic title Film, is a series of short videos built around one protocol: a snippet of news from a newspaper of the day, is rolled up and then placed on a black-inked surface. On making contact with the liquid, the roll opens and of Its own accord frees itself of the gesture that fashioned it. As it comes alive in this way, the sliver of paper reveals Its hitherto unexposed content; this unpredictable kinematics is evidence of the constant impermanence of news. As well as exploring a certain archaeology of cinema, the mechanism references the passage of time: the ink, whether it is poured or printed, is the ink of ongoing human history." –Ismaïl Bahri