HOUSE IN BERLIN, A (HAUS IN BERLIN, EIN)
photo © Heartbeatt Pictures
A Glaswegian woman discovers that she has a distant relationship to a historic building in Berlin and embarks on a journey into the history of 20th-century Germany, one that turns out to be more alive, ambiguous and unpredictable than expected, for it confronts her with the little-known history of Zionism and Palestine.
Filmed, performed and narrated in a restrained, almost Brechtian manner, this contemporary visual quest lies at the intersection between fiction and non-fiction and challenges our 'common knowledge' about the genealogy of contemporary Europe.
"A complex, yet lucid and compelling account of personal pathways intersecting with great forces of history."
Filmed, performed and narrated in a restrained, almost Brechtian manner, this contemporary visual quest lies at the intersection between fiction and non-fiction and challenges our 'common knowledge' about the genealogy of contemporary Europe.
"A complex, yet lucid and compelling account of personal pathways intersecting with great forces of history."
Cynthia Beatt grew up in Jamaica and the Fiji Islands, studied Art in Britain and then traveled for a year in the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and India. She worked with independent and experimental film in London in the 70s, then moved to Berlin and became involved with the International Forum of Cinema and the Arsenal Kino, where she curated a number of large-scale retrospectives of directors Jean Rouch, Powell and Pressburger, Fritz Lang, Rossellini, Max Ophüls, as well as programs devoted to Ecstasy in Film and The Depiction of Aboriginals in Australian Cinema. She has worked with such directors as Yvonne Rainer, Joan Jonas, Silke Grossmann, Klaus Wyborny, Ulrike Ottinger and Rudolf Thome. Her films include: STUDY OF AN ISLAND (1979), FURY IS A FEELING TOO (short, 1983, with Heinz Emigholz), NAMOSI and DAKUI GAU TRIO (shorts, 1986), CYCLING THE FRAME (short, 1988, with Tilda Swinton), THE PARTY-NATURE MORTE (1990, Tilda Swinton, Féodor Atkine, Lutz Weidlich), THE INVISIBLE FRAME (2009, with Tilda Swinton), and A HOUSE IN BERLIN (2014). She is currently preparing the feature HEART OF LIGHT to be shot in the Fiji Islands.
Genre Drama, History, Politics
Category Feature
Year of Production 2014
Director Cynthia Beatt
Screenplay Cynthia Beatt, Charlie Gormley
Cinematography Cynthia Beatt, Ute Freund, Cornelius Plache, Armin Dierolf
Cast Susan Vidler, Isi Metzstein, Clemens Schick, Peter Knaack, Achim Buch, Doris Egbring-Kahn, Maria Heiden, Angela Schanelec, Stuart McQuarrie, Marie Goyette, Annette Hollywood, Anna Gollwitzer
Producer Cynthia Beatt
Production Company Heartbeatt Pictures/Berlin
Length 96 min
Format DCP, Blu-ray, color, 16:9
Original Version English
Festivals Rotterdam 2014 (The State of Europe), Edinburgh 2014, Festival of German Films Ludwigshafen 2014, Sao Paulo 2014
World Sales
Heartbeatt Pictures
c.beatt@heartbeattpictures.de
Category Feature
Year of Production 2014
Director Cynthia Beatt
Screenplay Cynthia Beatt, Charlie Gormley
Cinematography Cynthia Beatt, Ute Freund, Cornelius Plache, Armin Dierolf
Cast Susan Vidler, Isi Metzstein, Clemens Schick, Peter Knaack, Achim Buch, Doris Egbring-Kahn, Maria Heiden, Angela Schanelec, Stuart McQuarrie, Marie Goyette, Annette Hollywood, Anna Gollwitzer
Producer Cynthia Beatt
Production Company Heartbeatt Pictures/Berlin
Length 96 min
Format DCP, Blu-ray, color, 16:9
Original Version English
Festivals Rotterdam 2014 (The State of Europe), Edinburgh 2014, Festival of German Films Ludwigshafen 2014, Sao Paulo 2014
World Sales
Heartbeatt Pictures
c.beatt@heartbeattpictures.de
