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The first major event of the Berlinale
season always starts with the beauteous Forum Expanded exhibition at
Akademie Der Kuenste at Hansaplatz in the Tiergarten. This year the
mood was very mega Maya Deren with the theme “A Mechanism Capable
of Changing Itself”.
I saw lots of new, bright sexy faces
which of course is the best way for any major eventa to begin, don't
you agree?
Forum Expanded founder, Empress
Stefanie Schulte Strathaus was beaming during her wonderful, humorous
intro and this year her curatorial unit consisted of handsome
manchild Ulrich Ziemons,Khaled Abdulwahed, Maha Maamoun. Nicole
Wolf(Think Film No. 6), Antonia Alampi, and Pia Chakravert-Wuerthwein
(SAVVY Contemporary).
Ute Holl also gave a spirited talk on
the Film Theory of Maya Deren. This years title coming from a
Deren notes about Marxism from 1947.
In the upstairs exhibition hall the
perfect start to the proceedings was Extended Sea by Nesrine Khodr
with a 2 channel video installation where the artist endurance swims
back and forth in a lap pool. The Mediterranean Sea is the perfect background
for 12 hours.
With Berlin suffering from frigid Arctic temps and a ring of 1918 enfluenza in the air, the lush tranquil Beirut coast was the perfect
place to sit and meditate. I spent many joyous hours contemplating my
haggy life, and the pitfalls inherent in wintery Berlina.
I also enjoyed Laura Horelli's Namibia
Today, Cafe Togo by Musquiqui Chihying & Gregor Kasper and The
Otolith Group's The Third Part of the Third Measure featuring music
and text by the militant minimalist, avant garde black composer
Julius Eastman. In the Forum Expanded Magazine I adored reading
Bonaventure Ndikung's “I Love to Love,Oh Pleasant Love-The Marvel
of Julius Eastman.
New York artist Shelly Silver's two
cute films one black & white and one in color are part of an
ongoing vinegar syndrome experiment. Like every year the amazing
Angela Anderson heads the exhibition design and technical
coordination with her crack crew that includes Masha Nehis, Alexia
Apolinario, Catherina Barich, Catalina Fernandez, Josephine Freiberg,
Richard Gabriel, Laure Gilquin, Noam Gorbat, Mareike Hornof, Kofi
Mahama, Dafne Narvaez, Janna Nehls, Michail Papoutsis, Juliana
Piquero, Thais Ribeiro Jibaja, Neda Saeedi,Coral Short, Isabel
Spengler, Willem van den Hoek,Ute Waldhausen, Michaela Werner, Katrin
Winkler, and Alessandro Zannini. Bravo heros!
Went to see the film Ruekenwind von
vorn by Philipp Eichholtz part of Perspective Deutsches Kino a
section of the festival I never visit. I take that back I did see a
horrid movie starring cute German actor Max Reimelt as a gay
policeman in this section a few years ago. The reason I saw this
film was because my godchild Richard Gabriel's ex girlfriend Victoria
Schultz is the star, and is quite the young actress.
Vicky photographs gorgeously, and is a most appealing film ingenue.
Her co-star is the attractive, husky actor Daniel Zillmann of
theVolksbuhner.
The Competition film Eva directed by
Benoit Jacquot I only wanted to see because of its stars Isabelle
Huppert and Gaspard Ulliel. Joseph Losey directed a much better
version of this story in 1962 starring the late great Jeanne Moreau.
The lovely Mr. Ulliel has wonderful cheekbones and a bubble butt to
build a dream on, but in person is rather dimunitive, and small
boned. I can't imagine him jumping on top of me and getting me preggers.
Rupert Everett's The Happy Prince was
all Oscar but nothing Wilde. I am a sucker for anything OW but can't
recommend this opus. The documentary Generation Wealth in Panorama
Section had only one amusing bit featuring some wealthy Chinese
learning how to eat a banana elegantly.
Had a nice time at the yearly Salzgeber
Reception at Prinzessinnenstr where I ran into Wilhelm Hein, and his
art photographer girlfriend Annette Frick. So good to see that
Wilhelm has gotten his color back after a long illness. At 77 years
old he has a very youthful drive and spirit. Annette's career just
keeps exploding with a big group exhibition called Mess With Your
Values that opens March 2, 7pm at NBK Gallery. Also chittle chatted
with lovesexy Christian Weber of Sissy Magazine, “it boy” Jan
Kunemond of Universitaet Hildesheim, proper butch Manuela Kay, Tat
Ort TV star Zazie De Paris, Susanne Sachsse, Zach Blas and Ruth
Schonegger.
My date for the party being that humpy
Muzlim jihadist Daniel Hendrickson.
Fearless Leader Susanne Sachsse of
CHEAP and Zach Blas who expertly directed the fab La Sachsse as Ayn
Rand in the hilarious Forum Expanded short film Contra Internet
-Jubilee 2033 screened as part of Program 5. Mr. Blas is one supper
smoldering young cineaste you will be hearing a lot more about. He
is already quite famous in certain quarters. Zach scored a recent
hit at the Transmediale Festival. Zachariah as I like to call him, is
a professor in London at Goldsmith College so that makes him a
colleague to the wonderful Nicole Wolf. Also part of Program 5 was We
Live in Silence, Chapters: 1-7 by Kudzanai Chiurai which featured
quite a lively tableaux vivante Last Supper scene.
In Program Four I was quite surprised
to see footage of Downtown Los Angeles movie palaces on North
Broadway as part of the film In the Ruins of Baalbeck Studios which
revolves around the biggest production studio in the Arab world and
its archive. Optimism by Deborah Stratman involving darkened winter
and gold extraction hit a little too close to home with this
Berlinale being the coldest I can remember in over ten years of being
a part of the festival. I was constantly fighting getting sick or
dealing with gout, and swollen knee and feet tissues. Yes Vaginal Davis turned 457 on Feb 20th. I am one old biatch. Wikipedia has me listed as being born on Feb 23, 1969 which is wrong, wrong, wrong! My actual date of birth is Feb 20th and as far as the year of my birth that is incorrect as well and I will just leave it at that.
Was surprised to find out that Nanette Fabray died age 97. Her one big film role was in the 1953 Vicente Minnelli musical The Bandwagon that stars Fred Astaire & Cyd Charisse. Ms. Fabray was incredible in the ensemble number "Thats Entertainment" "Triplets" and her solo "Louisiana Hayride". She also was featured in the TV sitcom One Day at a Time in the late 1970s. Her niece is actress Shelley Fabares who uses the original spelling of the family last name. Nanette changed the spelling as it was too confusing to stupid Americans.
Getting back to Former Expanded Jan Peter Hammer's Dug involving the
discovery of a 6,500 year old Early Bronze Age settlement in Bulgaria
was another highlight of Program Four. I think it was a good idea to
have the programs be a little shorter this year.
But of course there were some big events like Margaret Honda's 6144 x
1024 which in my estimation encapsulates everything that Forum
Expanded is about.
The Forum's Casanova Gene by Luise
Donschen had some nice moments especially with an interview with a
biologist and the cavorting of finches. I didn't really need to see
Hollywood actor John Malkovich, but I did appreciate the goofy ending
with a lanky kid doing an ill interpretive dance to Kate Bush's
Wuthering Heights.
Had an enjoyable time at the special
Forum Expanded concert at silent green Kulturquartier featuring
Invisible Hands the Cairo based band of American/Lebanese musician
Alan Bishop(Sun City Girls). Mr. Bishop is quite a character on
stage and sings in an off kilter Leonard Cohenesque fashion.
Favorite moment was the SatanLuciferBeelzebug speaking in tongues
section. My only complaint being that Bishop and his bandmates
performed on stage wearing sunglasses and street clothing which is
one of my alltime pet peeves.
So happy I was able to attend Think
Film Congress No. 6 Archival Installations. Empress Stefanie and
Nicole Wolf gave a juicy spirited intro and set the mood perfectly.
The first panel, Unpacking Histories: Film Archives and Their
Consequences which featured the marvelous Christy Best and Esther
Jemila Chukwuma(Jos) cutie pie Vinzenz Hediger of the Goethe
Univeritaet and Didi Cheeka of Lagos.
The Worker Leaves the
Archive...Documents, Material & Commentary But No Film discussing
the 1943 censored and lost Egyptian film by Ahmed Kamal Mursi.
Because I was Djaning the Forum Party in the evening I had to leave
at lunch time to go home and take a disco nap so i missed Tremors,
Repairs and Ruptured Naratives: Post Earthquake Film Archives in
Mexico and Japan with Viviana Garcia Besne of the Performencia
Voluntaria Film Archive, Tepotzlan and Ayumi Hata of 311 Documentary
Film Archive, Yamagata.
At the party Daniel Hendrickson who got
to witness most of Think Film Congress No. 6 gave me a little recap
of what I missed including Qamra: Queer Archive and Visual
Jurisprudence featuring T. Jayashree of Bangalore and Siddharth
Narrain (Delhi) with everyone's favorite facilitator gorgeous Nanna
Heidenreich.
The Forum Party was fun but the icy
cold weather made getting to and leaving a little tiresome with all
the layering one has to do to avoid frostbite. Let no part of the
body be exposed. My former Weissensee student Christophe DeRohan
Chabot came escorting her royal highness Prinzessin Gloria von Thurn
und Taxis who only stayed for a little while, but it was nutty seeing
the Punk Rock Princess who i use to hang with in LA, NYC and in
Europe back in the 1980s along with her faggot husband Prince Johan.
Joining me behind the wheels of steel
again this year was Djane Olga Damnitz who is always a delight. When
i spun the song Cool Places by Sparks that features Jane Wiedlin of
The GoGo's, I noticed Quincy Jones and Nastassia Kinski's model
daughter Kenya Kinski Jones dancing frantically 80s new wave style
with her actor beau Will Peltz. I use to dance the same way with
Kenya's mom at The Odyssey and The Mirror-Go-Round in Hollywood in
the early 1980s. Brandon Thomas Lee the son of Pamela Anderson &
rocker Tommy “Pencil Dick” Lee and his boyfriend Fionn Whitehead
dry humped in a corner near the DJ booth as Roberto Rossellini the
son of Isabella, snapped photos of the frisky lads. Famed German
directress Monica Treut who I heard later won a Teddy Award wanted a selfie with me as I unsuccessfully
mixed Laura Nyro into Aaliyah. Well what can I say? The Ms. Davis
doll is unequivacally the world's worse Djane. See you next year!