NZNTV

ANNIVERSARY. For some weeks now, numerous events have been held to mark a special anniversary. This year, on 31 May, Rainer Werner Fassbinder would have turned 70. Over the last years and decades, RWF has gained increasing international recognition as a film-maker.

His public image has shifted from enfant terrible to one of the most important German artists of the twentieth century. The exhibition Fassbinder – NOW in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau is currently offering visitors a chance to view a collection of his papers, marvel at the wonderful costumes designed for his last films, and learn more about RWF’s unique position and his influence on younger generations of artists. Special tours are also being offered during which the curator Anna Fricke, the costume-designer Barbara Baum, the curator Hans-Peter Reichmann from the German Film Museum in Frankfurt am Main, and Juliane Maria Lorenz, President of the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation will provide background information on the exhibition from different perspectives. In addition, between 1 June and 18 August Berlin’s Arsenal cinema is showing one of Fassbinder’s films every Monday. The program includes five films restored as part of the film-heritage restoration project FILMERBE CONTENT, and these new versions will be premiering in the Arsenal’s special program.

Another wonderful opportunity to celebrate Fassbinder’s birthday is being offered on 31 May itself at 7 p.m. in the Martin-Gropius-Bau: accompanied by music, Antje Vollmer and Hans-Eckardt Wenzel will be reading from their book Hinter den Bildern die Welt – Die untergegangene Bundesrepublik in den Filmen von Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Ein Briefwechsel (Behind the Images, the World. The lost Federal Republic of Germany in the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder – An exchange of letters) which was published Matrosenblau Verlag on 5 May. As part of their work on this project, the two authors were given special access to the entire body of the director’s work by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation. Vollmer and Wenzel describe their book as a “report on an encounter in the darkness of a movie theater” with films “that led us into a lost world and yet reached so far into the present.” Admission to the reading is free.

More information:

Fassbinder – NOW: an exhibition by the German Film Museum, Frankfurt am Main in collaboration with the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, Berlin. Funded by the German Capital Cultural Fund.

Exhibition runs from 26 May to 23 August

Martin-Gropius-Bau
Niederkirchnerstraße 7
10963 Berlin