Great Minds, Great Stories
What makes someone a great thinker? Does he or she think outside the boxes? Does he or she see things from an unexpected perspective? In this collection of films, both fiction and documentary, we see the extraordinary stories of people outside the exact sciences who think ahead and often change our world vision in almost imperceptible ways.
13, a Ludodrama about Walter Benjamin
Carlos Ferrand | Documentary | CA | 77 min | 2018 | tickets
From 1933 until his suicide in 1940, the German philosopher Walter Benjamin was on the run from the Nazis and lived in exile in Paris. This thirteen-chapter documentary essay explores Benjamin’s personality and wondrous world. We walk in his footsteps through Paris and see how his development slowly destroys him. This non-linear documentary tells the story of a man whose life resonates powerfully with our collective history. Combining archival footage, animated sequences and puppetry, the film paints a picture of the genius that Walter Benjamin was.
Alice et le Maire
Nicolas Pariser | Fiction | FR, BE | 104 min | 2019 | tickets
“Your job is to work on ideas, to take a step back from day-to-day municipal activities, to think about the future.” This is the position which Alice, a young philosopher from Oxford, finds herself thrust into at Lyon’s city hall and council; a world of fixed habits and customs that she knows nothing about, but with which she will soon become acquainted when she is hired by the mayor of Lyon. After thirty years in politics, the mayor is running out of ideas and feeling an existential emptiness. Alice et le Maire is a dialogue between two opposing personalities who turn their certainties upside down and explore the possibilities and limitations of politics and how these change over time.
Around the Sun
Oliver Krimpas | Fiction | UK | 78 min | 2019 | tickets
Touring a French castle as a potential film production, a film location scout spends the day with a beautiful young woman who passionately recounts the history of the castle. They lose themselves in conversations about philosophy, science and the story of a famous book that was set in this very spot. The book, written by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle – known as the father of popular science – tells the story of a philosopher and a woman of nobility who spend a week wandering through the castle discussing philosophy and science. As the film progresses, scenes start to repeat themselves, creating a complex and fascinating reality. Around the Sun is a stunning portrait of two people trapped in a confusing world of time and space. Is their connection real or just a projection of the characters from the book?
Beyond the Visible – Hilma af Klint
Halyna Dyrschka | Documentary | DE, SW, CH, UK | 93 min | 2019 | tickets
Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) created nearly 200 stunning abstract paintings four years before Vassily Kandinsky, who is generally regarded as the pioneer of abstract art. Her paintings were stored in an attic until thirty years after her death. Why was Af Kint ignored? Beyond the Visible is about her life, her work, and the role of women in art history.
Who Will Write Our History
Roberta Grossman | Documentary | US, PL | 86 min | 2018 | tickets
Who Will Write our History tells the story of historian Emanuel Ringelblum and Oyneg Shabes, the secret archive about Jewish life in the Warsaw ghetto that he helped to establish. With 30,000 hand-written pages, photos and posters, the Oyneg Shabes archive is the most important collection of eye-witness accounts of the Holocaust. Under Ringelblum’s guidance, journalists, scholars and Jewish community leaders defied their enemy with the ultimate weapon: the truth. They risked everything to make sure their archive survived the war, including their lives.
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