Philip Widmann
Works
Films
Das Gestell (2017)
A House in Ninh Hoa (2016)
Fictitious Force (2015)
Szenario (2014)
A/M Spring Version (2012)
Die Frau des Fotografen (2011)
Destination Finale (2009)
Publications
Der Sach-Verhalt (2017)
Der Sach-Verhalt
2017, digital print, edition of 50 copies
Photographic notes from the research for »Das Gestell«, with essays by J.A. Tillmann, Zsolt Miklósvölgyi and Márió Z. Nemes
published by Technologie & das Unheimliche
Das Gestell
2017, Super 8/DCP, Color / Black & White, 1:1.33 > 1:1.66, Dolby Digital 5.1, 30’
Naoki Ishida, Fumiake Onodera Voices Saki Yokoyama, Yuki Itai Translation Philip Widmann Image, Sound, Montage Shinichi Hirota Assistant Iris Drögekamp, Johann Lurf and others Additional Sounds Students of Kyoto University, Taiko Players Moji-ko Music Théo Deslus Color Grading Jochen Jezussek Sound Mix
Produced by Philip Widmann
distributed by Light Cone
Development supported by Akademie Schloss Solitude in cooperation with MFG Baden-Württemberg, Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa
Production funded by The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
Post-production supported by Atelier 105 / Light Cone
A Japanese philosopher writes a letter to a famous German colleague. He asks the German to advise the Japanese people how to deal with the permeation of modern life by technology. More than 50 years later, the same issues are being discussed among academics and aspiring engineers. It is hard to grasp how humans and technology continue to coexist. Resorting to biographical trivia, mythological histories and the recounting of dreams is not helping them to see these issues any clearer. In the grainy images of the film, landscapes from an uncertain time appear, occasionally flooded by water and a cacophony of brass players. The uncontrollable finds its ways into a world that tries to minimise risks and thus creates new dangers.
Screenings & Awards
2018
Cine Esquema Novo Porto Alegre
La Cabina Festival Internacional de Mediometrajes Valencia
Underdox Dokument & Experiment Munich
Thai Short Film & Video Festival
Scratch Projection Paris
Moscow School of New Cinema
Zönotéka Berlin
Awards of the German Film Critics' Association – Shortlist Experimental Film
Stuttgarter Filmwinter – Festival for Expanded Media
2017
Mzin Leipzig
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'art de Bourges
Filmmakers Cinema Pittsburgh
Cork Film Festival
Hanoi DocFest
Dawawine Beirut
Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia Osaka
Arkipel Jakarta International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival
Moscow International Experimental Film Festival
Kayokoyuki Gallery Tokyo
Temporary Gallery Cologne
Carefully Studied Ecstasies, Kino Arsenal Berlin
DocumentaMadrid
Image Forum Festival Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Yokohama
European Media Art Festival Osnabrück – Media Art Award of the German Film Critics Association
CPH:DOX
International Film Festival Rotterdam
Press
Schloss-Post: Dimensions of Practiced Politics – Part 1 & 2
Schloss-Post: Reading Heidegger in Japan
Fictitious Force
2015, Super 16/35/DCP, Black & White, 1:1.66 > 1:1.78, Dolby Digital 5.1, 15’
with Tarun Katari and the voice of Dhiraj Roy
Basab Mullik Cinematography Bernd Lützeler Additional Cinematography Joydeep Dutta Location Sound Kunal Singh Location Sound Stanley Mudda 1st Assistant Camera Debojeet Ray 2nd Assistant Camera Shakyasingha Chakraborty Research & Interpretation Sougata Mukherjee Research & Interpretation Arnab Chakrabarty Translation & Consulting Bernd Lützeler Production Management Sharanya Chattopadhyay Production Coordination Arindam Choudhury Runner Prantik Mukherjee Runner Dhiman Paul Runner Mohammad Naushad Driver Nandu Rai Driver Akbar Khan Driver Film 16 Laboratory Roman Vehlken Sound Design & Re-recording Mica Cabildo Typography Philip Widmann Conception & Montage
Produced by Widmann / Works Cited
distributed by Light Cone
Funded by The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the German Federal Film Board
with the kind support of Bhima Manik and the Charak Sanyasis of Dom Pada and Ram Bagan, Kolkata, India; The Anath Nath Deb Trust Estate; The Anath Nath Deb Bazar Committee
A theorem from physics that describes apparent forces in circular motion when observed from an external frame of reference lends its name to a film by Philip Widmann: Fictitious Force is a cinematic exchange on the impossibility of sharing experiences, in black and white and grey.
We see a man preparing to perform in front of a large crowd. Several features signify that this performance is part of a ritual, that the location of events is in an exotic country with a different writing system and different conventions of clothing. Shot in 2013 during a festival of devotees of Shiva by a local crew in Kolkata/India, and in a language that the director neither speaks nor understands, the film relies on the visual and leaves us puzzled. Fragmented dialogues in Bengali and English appear as type, interrupting the course of events, and negotiating the dilemma of ethnography and – perhaps – of spectatorship itself in mundanely poetic terms. The distance between observer and observed, between self and other can be diminished or negated but eventually cannot be overcome. Like previous works of Widmann’s, Fictitious Force implicitly deals with questions of representation and physicality, informed by an anthropological interest that claims no academic foundation. - www.schloss-post.com
Screenings & Awards
2018
Cinéma Bretagne Guichen
Harkat Studios Mumbai
Videonale.scope #6 Cologne
Cinemática, Cinema do CIC Florianópolis
Cine Esquema Novo Porto Alegre
Light Cone Preview Show Paris
Chennai International Documentary & Short Film Festival
2017
Dawawine Beirut
Encuentros del Otro Cine Quito & Guayaquil
Videonale.16 Bonn
2016
International Short & Independent Film Festival Dhaka
EXiS Seoul
Bains Argentiques Nantes
Space Dike Tokyo
Internationale Kurzfilmwoche Regensburg
Akademie Schloss Solitude (Installation Version)
2015
Experimenta Bangalore
Kassel Documentary & Video Festival
Unlimited Cologne
Curta Cinema Rio de Janeiro
Underdox Dokument & Experiment Munich
Festival du nouveau cinéma Montréal
Uppsala International Short Film Festival
25FPS Zagreb – Grand Prix Anouk de Clercq
Festival internacional de curtas de Belo Horizonte
Festival Silhouette
Curtas Vila do Conde
FID Marseille
Festival Internacional de Cine de Huesca
Internationales Kurzfilmfestival Hamburg
Press
Schloss-Post: In the Absence of a Common Language
The Seventh Art: Notes from Experimenta 2015
Szenario
2014, 16mm/DCP, Color, 1:1.33, Dolby Digital 5.1, 89'
Philip Widmann Script, Direction, Montage, Image Karsten Krause Image, Co-Direction, Montage Cora Frost Woman‘s Voice Gustav Peter Wöhler Man‘s Voice Lisa Arndt Woman Kenneth Huber Hans Odine Johne Monika Tom Schön Sound Recording Julia Meyer Location Research Monika Preischl Archive Research Caroline Kirberg Line Production Peter Bausch Set Design Frank Semerau Light Design Sabrina Fiedler Camera Assistant Elí Roland Sachs Camera Assistant Rikisaburo Sato Camera Assistant Julia Schiller Wardrobe Julia Heppner Makeup Clara Bausch Property Manager Dörthe Weller Set Decorator Matthias Behrens Color Grading, Mastering Volker Zeigermann Sound Design Pierre Brand Re-recording Martin Langenbach Sound Effects Domingo Stephan Retouching Lutz Garmsen Animation arc Bartsch/Grimberg Typography Arri Schwarzfilm Laboratory, Téléciné Amanda C. Lee Translation Frank Scheuffele Accounting Nadine Hübsch Production Assistant Nicoll Ullrich Catering
Produced by Krause & Widmann / Works Cited in co-production with Blinker Filmproduktion
distributed by arsenal distribution (Germany) & Light Cone (international)
Funded by Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, German Federal Film Board, DEFA-Stiftung, Filmbüro Bremen
with the kind support of Galerie Susanne Zander, Peter Bausch, Kodak Entertainment Imaging
A woman‘s voice and a man‘s voice speaking in unison: »A woman called Monika, and a man called Hans. Hans documents in writing that Monika has threatened him - her boss, employer and lover - with the withdrawal of her sexual favors if his wife doesn‘t apologize to her.«
The contents of a black briefcase lead us into a superficially well-ordered life in West Germany in 1970, in a city that can be seen as representative of the entire country. In this briefcase: the meticulous documentation of an affair between the small business owner Hans and his secretary Monika. A detailed protocol of their sexual activities leaves a trail through the field of infinite possibilities and finite probabilities of leading a different life under the same circumstances.
Watch Szenario on Doc Alliance Films
Monika and Hans have a relationship, and Hans considers this relationship worthy of documentation. He creates a collection in a black briefcase. This collection is his form of a coherent narrative, a factual report. Written entries are supplemented and seemingly verified by receipts, calendar pages, photographs and other artifacts. Szenario follows the chronology of the entries, whose plot is as banal as it is absurd. And because the contents of the briefcase betray more about Hans, the writer, than about Monika, the one written about, the question quickly arises: Who is this Monika? Or rather, who might she have been?
The film projects a second image onto the one created by Hans, and adds another scenario to his factual report. A concatenation of the probable life situation of a woman named Monika, who could be any woman, with the possibilities of leading a completely different life under the same circumstances. The circumstances: regional, biological, social and individual determinants, which outline the setting and the character. A West German city named Cologne, age and gender, mental and physical health, the character‘s own horizon.
Neither picture is complete nor congruent. Doubts arise. The film is composed of a chain of questions about the identity of numbers, words, images and sounds - and the people and places they help describe. Is what is heard identical to what is seen? Is the photo identical to the image in the film? The written to the spoken? The spoken to the thought?
Screenings
2018
Cinemática, Cinema do CIC Florianópolis
Cine Esquema Novo Porto Alegre
Digital October / Higher School of Economics Moscow
2017
Kinoproba Ekaterinburg
Dawawine Beirut
Nonfiktionale Bad Aibling
2015
Filmplus Cologne – shortlisted for the Bild Kunst Editing Award for Documentary Film
Kinelab Hamburg
États généraux du film documentaire Lussas
Docs Against Gravity Warsaw
2014
FFD Yogyakarta
Exposed Film Festival Cologne
CPH:DOX
Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- und Videofestival
Akademie Schloss Solitude Stuttgart
Underdox Dokument & Experiment Munich
Director's Lounge Berlin
Dokumentarfilmwoche Hamburg
Berlin International Film Festival, Perspektive Deutsches Kino
Press
Schloss-Post: Multidimensional Pleasures
Senses of Cinema: Finding the Centre
Kino-Zeit: Protokoll einer Affäre
A/M Spring Version
2012, 16mm, Black & White, 1:1.33, silent, 3'
Philip Widmann Cinematography, Animation, Processing, Montage, Print
Produced by Goethe-Institut Athens as part of Hand Over Cinema, a workshop organized by LabA in cooperation with LaborBerlin e.V.
distributed by Light Cone
An afternoon in Athens, September 2011, the sun is low. A film, more than 50 years old. There is always something being transported, even if the boxes may turn out to be empty. Goods, means and actors tell stories: metaforai.
A/M Spring Version combines documentary footage shot in Athens shortly before sunset, which were hand-processed and edited on the same evening, with a re-photographed and animated travel film from the 1950s. It is a take on an excerpt from Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life.
The passage reads: »In modern Athens, the vehicles of mass transportation are called metaforai. To go to work or come home, one takes a metaphor – a bus or a train. Stories could also take this noble name: every day, they traverse and organise places; they select and link them together; they make sentences and itineraries out of them. They are spatial trajectories.«
Screenings
2018
Scratch Expanded #9 Paris
2016
Space Dike Tokyo
2014
Ausland Berlin
2013
Goethe-Institut Seoul
Filmfestival Münster
Arsenal Berlin
Wiener Festwochen
2012
Zico House Beirut
Goethe-Institut Athens
Die Frau des Fotografen / The Photographer's Wife
2011, HD & Super 8, B/W & Color, 1:1.78, Stereo, 29'
Eugen Gerbert Photographs, Films & Texts Philip Widmann Script, Direction, Cinematography, Sound, Montage Karsten Krause Direction, Cinematography, Sound, Montage Roman Vehlken Sound Design & Re-recording Matthias Behrens Color Grading & Mastering
Produced by Philip Widmann in co-production with Karsten Krause and in cooperation with Hamburg University of Fine Arts
Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein and Freundeskreis der HfbK Hamburg e.V.
Gerti Gerbert was photographed by her husband Eugen over a period spanning more than forty years. Besides the obligatory family photographs, from their wedding day until his death Eugen took countless pictures of Gerti: in her underwear, in homemade summer frocks, or completely naked; on the beach, in the woods, in the car, or on the floor at home.
Using the Gerberts’ picture archive, interviews with Gerti, and Eugen’s notes, the film looks at what remains of life and love at the end.
Watch The Photographer's Wife on Doc Alliance Films
Screenings & Awards
2016
21er Haus Vienna
2015
Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal
2013
Transcinema Lima
Encuentros del otro cine Quito & Guayaquil
2012
Grande Filiale Speyer
DocLab / Goethe Institut Hanoi
DOXA Documentary Film Festival – Best Short Documentary
Timishort Film Festival – Special Mention
Neisse Film Festival
Nowe Horyzonty Wroclaw
EUShorts Budapest
Achtung Berlin
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Dokumentarfilmwoche Hamburg
Beogradski Festival Dokumentarnog i Kratkometražnog Filma
Filmfest Schleswig-Holstein
Landshuter Kurzfilmfestival
2011
Rencontres Henri Langlois
German Short Film Award – Best Documentary
Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival
Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- und Videofest
Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife
dokumentART Neubrandenburg/Szczeczin – Latücht-Award
Curta Cinema Rio de Janeiro – Special Jury Award
Festival Internacional de Jóvenes Realizadores de Granada
Festival Internacional de Curtas de Belo Horizonte – Melhor curta
First Steps Awards – Best Documentary
Internationales Kurzfilmfestival Hamburg – Special Mention
Festival Internacional de Cine de Huesca – Special Mention
Krakow Film Festival – Special Mention
Curtocircuito Santiago de Compostela
IndieLisboa
Visions du Réel
Destination Finale
2008, 8mm/Beta SP, Color, 1:1.33, Stereo, 9'
Unknown Cinematography Philip Widmann Realization, Montage, Sound Design
Produced by Gerd Roscher / HfbK Hamburg & Philip Widmann
distributed by Light Cone
Funded by Karl H. Ditze-Stiftung Hamburg
A man, presumably of Vietnamese origin, travels Europe.
Shortly after, American troops enter the ground war in Vietnam.
The opening moments of the film feature a shot of Paris from an ascending lift on the Eiffel Tower. The subject of the film, a Vietnamese man always neatly dressed in a dark suit and tie, is introduced and shown walking around an observation level on the tower. What initially appears to be a simple, vintage home movie quickly begins to invite multiple readings by the viewer and to suggest layer upon layer of additional meanings. We follow the man as he appears before many of Europe’s most famous landmarks: the Arc de Triomphe in Paris; London’s Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Piccadilly Circus; the Acropolis in Athens.
Who is this man? Who is holding the camera? Who is the man in tweed, watching the Vietnamese man cross a rainy street in Paris? He looks into the camera, and then quickly turns his back, apparently to avoid detection. Are we in the middle of a Graham Greene spy story? Widmann hints at his intentions in the film’s conclusion, when we see the man, packed and bound for Saigon as indicated by his Air France luggage tag. He is met by a large gathering — friends, family? — upon his return. It is not until the film’s brief epilogue, however, when all of what we have witnessed fully resonates.
Dave Filipi, Curator Film/Video, Wexner Center for the Arts, 2009 [excerpt]
Destination Finale similarly complicates the relation between the viewer and what is being seen. The film recuts found home movie footage of a European holiday that features a Vietnamese man who poses, reluctantly it seems, in front of the Eiffel Tower, Piccadilly Circus and the Acropolis.
The footage was found in 2005 in Saigon and Widmann added sound effects, including rain, the chiming of Big Ben and the sound of marching, but no voiceover to guide the footage that’s being seen. Presumably it’s just as perplexing for him: who is this man that we’re seeing and who is filming him? More importantly, whose film is this?
Destination Finale raises some of the same questions that were treated rather dubiously in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (2005), but Widmann’s artifact is ever more elusive, even ghostly. At the end of the film, Widmann notes the coincidence of the dates between the footage, estimated between late 1964 and early 1965, and the deployment of US troops to Vietnam in March of 1965, a fact that further complicates the way in which these images might be read. Is this man, in his seeming discomfort, already aware of what’s to come? Or does this slight hint of a narrative only expose the fact that he is ultimately unknowable?
Geneviève Yue, Senses of Cinema, 2009 [excerpt]
Watch Destination Finale on Doc Alliance Films
Destination Finale is available on DVD as an accompaniment to Incite – Journal of Experimental Media, Issue 2: Counter-Archive. Edition of 300 pieces.
A text on Destination Finale by Philip Widmann was published in Tourists & Nomads – Amateur Images of Migration, edited by Sonia Kmec and Viviane Thill.
Screenings & Awards
2018
Moscow New School of Cinema
Digital October / Higher School of Economics Moscow
2017
Kinoproba Ekaterinburg
Dawawine Beirut
Kino Lux Cologne
2016
Space Dike Tokyo
2011
FLEX Florida Experimental Film Festival
Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival
2010
Festival Les Inattendus Lyon
Black Maria Film and Video Festival
Tampere Film Festival – Best Documentary
Bradford International Film Festival
Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival
Crossroads Cinematheque San Francisco
Vienna Independent Shorts
Kunstfilmtag Düsseldorf
New York Film Festival / Views from the Avant-Garde
Microwave Hong Kong
Timishort – Special Mention
Wiz Art Lviv
2009
L’Alternativa Barcelona
Tirana International Film Festival
Film Festival 600" Ljubljana
Festival international du film de Belfort EntreVues – Grand Prix du court-métrage documentaire
Videomedeja Novi Sad
Experimenta Bangalore
Flensburger Kurzfilmtage
Fresh Film Fest Karlovy Vary
Namatreba Trebinje
Indielisboa
International Media Art Biennale WRO09 Wroclaw
Curtas Vila do Conde
Odense International Film Festival – Special Mention
Festival Internacional de Curtas-Metragens de São Paulo
Festival Silhouettes Paris
2Annas Riga
Festivals Tous Courts Aix-en-Provence
Festival International du Film d'Amiens
Recine Rio de Janeiro – Best Short Film
Underdox Dokument & Experiment München
Curtocircuito Santiago de Compostela – Gran Premio Explora!
Avant Garde Film Festival Athens
Antimatter
Arkansas Underground Film Festival
Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife
Lucca Film Festival
ATA Film & Video Festival San Francisco
Kunstfilmbiennale Köln
World Film Festival Bangkok
Busan Asian Short Film Festival
Aurora Norwich
2008
Dokumentarfilmwoche Hamburg
FIDMarseille
EXiS Seoul
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Further screenings
Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
Plano B Porto
Balta Nakts Riga
Plan 9 Praha
Galeria Kont Lublin
Galeria Sztuki Torun
Akademia e Filmit dhe Multimedias Marubi Tirana
Le Nouveau Latina Paris
Panorama Internacional de Cine Independiente / La Enana Marrón Madrid
Personal Cinema Series / Millennium Film Workshop New York
Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma Helsinki
Festival of Sacred Music Uppsala
Mire Nantes
DocLab / Goethe-Institut Hanoi
Kino Apollo Zürich
Kino Vendôme Beirut
Kino Hollywood Minneapolis
Akademie Schloss Solitude
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