LOVING THE UNDEAD
THE ZOMBIE FILM PROGRAMME TO GENERATE
HORROR, KNOWLEDGE AND PROTEST
CURATED BY GEORG SEEßLEN AND MARKUS METZ
The more virulent a problem, the more interesting are the connections and bypasses in its images between art and trash, science and entertainment. With virulent problems - for instance the rising of undead out of graves, laboratories or rail tunnels, out of history, the subconscious or mythology - there is hardly ever a meeting in the middle but rather mostly in the underground. Our film programme wished to forge a couple of these kinds of connections to the zombie, the most virulent of all the undead. We combined the Hollywood genre classic White Zombie (USA 1932, director Victor Halperin), starring the inimitable Bela Lugosi and revealing a crazy sexual-political subtext, with a documentation by Jean Rouch (Les Maîtres Fous, France 1955) which the French filmmaker shot as "ethnofiction" on the request of supporters of the African Hauka movement. This film triggers fierce controversy wherever it is shown, precipitating debates about the authentic, re-enactments, the exotic gaze and Négritude. The subtle undead film Les Revenants (France 2004, director Robin Campillo) poses the disturbing question what would happen if zombies were not cannibalistic beasts and a war of extermination did not have to be conducted against them. Otto; or, Up with Dead People (Germany/Canada 2008) is a masterwork of the trash-art-sex film by Bruce LaBruce, who was a guest of the congress and offered personal insights into his work as director. In Zombie, Island of the Living Dead (Italy, 1979) Lucio Fulci cultivates gore as an art form. The maverick and late discovered grindhouse film Carnival of Souls (USA 1962, director Herk Harvey) inspired Christian Petzold to his film Yella: when do you actually know that you're dead, and what happened before young boys who have seen dead people succeed in fairytale cinema? We screened George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (USA 1968) and to accompany the classic - a European premiere - Roy Frumke's The Definite Document of the Dead (USA 2010), a film providing a glimpse behind the scenes of Romero's filmic undead universe. In 1978 the only documentary filmmaker present on the set of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, Frumke continuously follows the director during the shooting. The result was the 1985 Document of the Dead, the first making-of film about an independent feature in the USA, followed in 1989, 2005 and most recently 2010 by a newer version of the long-time documentary featuring a host of new material. Im Schatten der Made (Germany 2010) the world of the undead confronts the art of John Bock. To end the programme we hustled two brilliant authorities of the material, the filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit and the film theorist Marcus Stiglegger, to delve into a particularly virulent sub-theme: zombies and Nazis. Where are Hitler's willing undead slumbering: in the depths of the ocean as in Shock Waves (USA 1977, director Ken Wiederholm) or in the eternal ice of the north as in Dead Snow (Norway 2009, director Tommy Wirkola)? - Or perhaps in the basement fantasy of kids in which fear and desire circle forever and are channelled into language and images which would otherwise be passed over in the respectable and reasonable rooms above?
Each screening was accompanied by an introduction by Georg Seeßlen and Markus Metz.
THURSDAY, MAY 12
18.00 Uhr
"LES MAÎTRES FOUS" [FR 1955, R: Jean Rouch, 16mm projection, english dubbed version]
"WHITE ZOMBIE" [USA 1932, R: Victor Halperin, 16mm projection, original version]
20.30 Uhr
"LES REVENANTS" [FR 2004, R: Robin Campillo, 35mm projection, french with english subtitles]
22.30 Uhr
"OTTO; OR, UP WITH DEAD PEOPLE" [DE/CA 2008, R: Bruce LaBruce, digital projection, english with german subtitles]
In the presence of the director
FRIDAY, MAY 13
18.30 Uhr
"WOODOO – DIE SCHRECKENSINSEL DER ZOMBIES" [IT 1979, R: Lucio Fulci, 35mm projection, german cinema version]
20.30 Uhr
"THE DEFINITIVE DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD" [USA 1978/1989/2005/2010, R: Roy Frumkes, 104min, digital projection, original version]
European premiere in the presence of the director
22.30 Uhr
"NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD" [USA 1968, R: George A. Romero, 35mm projection, original version]
SATURDAY, MAY 14
18.00 Uhr
"CARNIVAL OF SOULS" [USA 1962, R: Herk Harvey, 35mm projection, english with german subtitles]
20.30 Uhr
"IM SCHATTEN DER MADE" [DE 2010, R: John Bock, digital projection, silent film
22.30 Uhr
Double-Feature with Marcus Stiglegger & Jörg Buttgereit
"SHOCK WAVES" [USA 1977, R: Ken Wiederhorn, digital projection, original version
"DEAD SNOW" [NOR 2009, R: Tommy Wirkola, digital projection, norwegian with german subtitles
