Helena Wittmann

A young girl is cured of her epilepsy just as summer vacation is about to begin. During her last days with her classmates, she’ll come to experience life in a new way. Arranged as a series of elliptical tableaux, this haunting narrative from Luise Donschen (Casanova Gene) captures a simultaneous sense of discovery and disorientation as it proceeds from the confines of the classroom to a wider world of adolescent anxieties.

This precisely calibrated domestic diorama alights upon the imagined futures of a group of anonymous young adults. In Helena Wittmann’s warmly rendered feat of formalist filmmaking, questions of time and the realities of space convene in languid interior pans, incremental shifts in light, and the private reflections of her subjects.

In addition to demonstrating the unexpected complexities of individual life paths, THE WILD establishes the possibility of “cinematic space” becoming a type of “third space”. Two seemingly contrasting spaces merge to construct a new space. The first space is the living room of a retired couple. The second space is embodied in Super 8 recordings filmed by the old man during his numerous trips to Africa and Asia during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. The pictures show exotic animals which are projected directly onto the walls and furniture of the house. The assembly of these differing spaces does not create a more succinct boundary between them, but rather assists in the mingling of the two spaces. In this fleeting moment of third space, as it is limited by time, a new cinematic reality is formed.

Two women spend a weekend in the North Sea. One of them will soon return to her family in Argentina, whereas the other one will try to come a step closer to the ocean. She will cross the Atlantic Ocean on a sailing vessel. Time leaves the beaten track and the swell lulls to deep sleep. The sea takes over the narration. When the other one reappears, the wind is still in her hair while the ground beneath her feet is solid. She returns and the other one could ask: “Have you changed?”

A person enters the frame dressed up as a bird. In a dressing room, John Malkovich sheds the costume of Casanova. A young woman's skirt is just as orange as the beak of a zebra finch singing in a cage. White lilies stand at the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary, red roses in front of the window of an SM studio. There the quiet game of submission in exchange for money, in a museum an embrace, a poem whispered in the ear. Children playing in a forest in autumn. A forest in summer, framed by light. An orgasm and a dance.

An audio-visual installation by Helena Wittmann and Nika Son, based on the interaction of the shape and the sound from waves. The delicate image-installation arouses an awe of audiovisual senses to the audience. The shape of waves, the pitch of sound, and the innumerably changing waves made by screens of two different sizes, create the message of formation, evolution and extinction in the audio-visual, synesthetic sense.

Amid German reunification in 1990, 50-year-old Patty first loses her job and then her friend Jelena. In a small East German town, she collects discarded objects and meets the younger Franz. When her flat becomes so full of belongings that she can no longer enter it, she sets out into a colorful forest. A journey through landscapes and history begins—carrying away more than just her.

The image of a room, its appearance changing with the shades of light. A window front, seen through the window. Changing flower arrangements on a side table. Sounds, entering the room from outside the frame. A construction site hints at changes in the exterior. Rehearsals. Are the sound waves of the piano reaching us from downstairs or from next door? In 21.3 °C Helena Wittmann reduces the filmic elements to the essentials: light, shadow, sound, direction. Out of this minimum, stories emerge that linger, atmospheres that resonate. Little by little the viewer is thrown back upon herself/himself. Through the facing window front someone seems to look back at us. Only the temperature remains the same.