GUSTAV DEUTSCH: NOT HOME. PICTURING THE FOREIGN FILMS 1990-2015

NOT HOME. PICTURING THE FOREIGN FILMS 1990-2015 charts the development of Austrian artist Gustav Deutsch’s signature style, displaying his talents both as a cinematographer and archivist. This collection of 3 of his lesser-known films (ADRIA, EYEWITNESSES TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES, and NOTES AND SKETCHES 1), now available for the first time on DVD, complements an appreciation of his most famous found footage moving image work, FILM IST.

"Over the past half-century, two tendencies have dominated independent, artisanal filmmaking. One of these is the fascination with the material artifacts of cinema´s history: it is often called »found-footage filmmaking« and sometimes »recycled cinema«. Filmmakers working in this vein are often archeologists of cinema, aesthetically and/or ideologically engaging with the work of earlier generations of filmmakers of all kinds. The other tendency has produced a remarkable cinema of Place: depictions of a wide range of environments that ask us to really see (and hear) where we and our human colleagues across the globe are in relation to our natural/cultural environments. Throughout his long career, Gustav Deutsch has been an important contributor to both these tendencies."

– Scott MacDonald

In ADRIA (1990), Deutsch assembled the home movies of families visiting the Adriatic resorts during the period 1954-1968 when it became economically possible for them to document their vacations on 8mm film. Deutsch analyzes what the anonymous traveler considers memorable and discovers remarkable regularities, an optical recidivism when it comes to filming architecture, family and leisure time. Deutsch organizes the shots in ADRIA into four thematic sections. By assembling comparable sequences from these private films (e.g., frontal or side-window scenes shot from a moving vehicle, the play of waves, or the view of the coast), he makes it clear how much of our daily media consumption is based on a standard repertoire of subconsciously acquired images and points of views that indicate a collective cultural achievement on account of their normality and calculability.

EYEWITNESSES TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES (1993) was made with Moroccan director Mostafa Tabbou, comprising 600 shots that last 3 seconds each, organized into motifs in duration from 30 to 60 seconds. Deutsch filmed in Figuig, Morocco, and Tabbou in Vienna. "Many aspects of life in Morocco have parallels in Vienna, with Deutsch capturing the way in which the North African climate influences the pace of life without descending into Orientalist cliché, and Tabbou giving an intriguing insight into how Austria looks to him: ordered, bureaucratic and cold, both emotionally and physically." (Juliet Jacques)

Deutsch’s most recent major work, NOTES AND SKETCHES 1 (2005-2015) consists of a series of ‘pocket films’ made across Europe and North America with a Canon camera and a mobile phone. Comprised of shots of varying length, the entire work lasts one hour in total. Deutsch uses digital technology to revisit the methods of the 19th century cinematic pioneers, especially the Lumière brothers. One particularly revealing location scene in Los Angeles includes shots of filmmakers and scholars Ernie Gehr, Tom Gunning and Ken Jacobs – all of whom have paid ample homage to early cinema in their written and filmed oeuvres. 

Capping off Deutsch’s global cinema journeys, in SAT., 29TH OF JUNE/ARCTIC CIRCLE (1990) the filmmaker manipulates a found footage film comprising two married couples traveling from Vienna to the Arctic Circle and back.

  Contents

Format: DVD-PAL / Region 0
(No Regional Code); DVD/DSL Bundle

     ----------------------------------------------------------

ADRIA – HOLIDAY FILMS 1954-68 (FILM–SCHOOL OF SEEING I)
(Austria, 1990)

Director: Gustav Deutsch

• 37 minutes
• 16mm (Super-8 blow-up)
• B&W, color
• Sound

    _________________________________________

EYEWITNESS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES
(Austria, 1993)

Director: Gustav Deutsch & Mostafa Tabbou

• 33 minutes
• 16mm
• Color
• Sound

    _________________________________________

NOTES AND SKETCHES 1
(Austria, 2005-2015)

Director: Gustav Deutsch

• 60 minutes
• Digital
• Color
• Sound

    _________________________________________

Bonus Material

SAT., 29TH OF JUNE/ARCTIC CIRCLE
(1990) 

• 3 minutes
• 16mm (Super-8 blow-up)
• Color
• Sound

     _________________________________________
     _________________________________________

Total Running Time: 02:13:00

Booklet Text: Gustav Deutsch, Scott MacDonald, Stefan Grissemann (Bilingual English & German) & Wolfgang Kos (English)

Published By: Index Edition

Institutional Price: $250 (DVD only); $500 DVD/DSL bundle (plus shipping)

To order call: 212.280.8654 or click here for information on ordering by fax, e-mail or post.