En Rachâchant – Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet (France, 1982, b&w, sound, 7 min)

Ernesto, a young schoolboy, decides to stop going to school because he learns things there that he doesn’t know. His parents take him to see the principal who tries, in vain, to impose his authority as a fount of wisdom upon the child, but eventually has to admit defeat. Adapted from Ah! Ernesto (1971) by Marguerite Duras.

Aprè-midi près du tombeau de Falconetti – Oleg Tcherny (France, 2012, color, sound, 10 min)

On a sunny afternoon, an elderly man is sitting in the shade of the
trees of the Montmartre cemetery in Paris, on the edge of the tomb
of the great actress Falconetti (1892-1946). She gained
unforgettable recognition as Jeanne d’Arc in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s
1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. Later, she took her life in
Buenos Aires. Now the old man, Jean- Marie Straub, while playing with his walking stick, keeps her company. Until he is disturbed…

La Madre – Jean-Marie Straub (Switzerland, 2012, color, sound, 20 min)

La madre is based on the short story with the same title from Dialoghi con Leucò (1947) by Cesare Pavese, a text that also was used in the film Dalla nube alla resistenza (1979). After having killed someone, Meleagros is killed in turn – by his own mother, whom he never managed to cut loose from completely. But… is there anyone who manages to break away from their mother? This is the question asked by more than ambiguous and ambivalent Hermes. With irony and sympathy, he enlightens the human who has turned into a shadow about these facts of life. The three versions – different recordings of the same text – project onto the screen the fears and hopes from the beginning of times as the very issues that accompany us in our own everyday life.

Verteidigung der Zeit – Peter Nestler (Germany, 2007, color, sound, 24 min)

Peter Nestler’s poetic documentary Verteidigung der Zeit is not only
an hommage to Jean-Marie Straub’s and Danièle Huillet’s film Quei
loro incontri (2005), but also to their access to cinema itself. In
various encounters and conversations Nestler offers an insight into
their life and work, including passages from Italian poet Cesare
Pavese. Commisioned by German television network 3sat, Nestler’s
film could be seen as memory film to their collaborative efforts, but
especially directed to Danièle, who passed away the year before.
Included in the film is also footage from their visit to Stockholm and
Filmhuset in February 2004, a conversation that is published, for the first time, in its entirety in the new issue of Walden 7/8.