Michael Pilz Honored at 2011 Berlin Film Festival with Screening of HIMMEL UND ERDE

Himmel und Erde

Heaven and Earth

Austria, 1979-1982, 285 min

German

    Director: Michael Pilz

    Section: Forum

    Screenings at the festival

    Fri       Feb 11  11:00    CineStar 8 (E)

    Thu     Feb 17  20:00    Kino Arsenal 1 (E)

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Download Festival Catalogue, PDF

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    Michael Pilz’s epic two-part                 

    documentary tells of life in a                        

    mountain village in the Aust

rian 

    state of Styria. "Give it a chance

    and this film will soon draw you into     

    its own cosmos; it can be counted

    among those works that teach you

    to see and hear things in a

    completely new way."

    (Ulrich Gregor, Forum 1983) 

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"Take what is before you as it is and do not wish it to be different, simply

exist." This motto from the Chinese poet Lao-tzu precedes the film and is

programmatic for Michael Pilz’s open concept, devoid as it is of a

sociological motive. His almost five-hour-long cinematic essay was a

milestone in the making of independent documentary films. And even

today it is still extraordinary owing to its aesthetic waywardness and its free

form – a mixture of compassionate observation, the self-reflective

disclosure of the filmmaker’s presence and procedures, the contrapuntal

use of sound and comments in the form of off-screen texts from sources as

far-ranging as Lao-tzu to the Bible to Stanislaw Lem. The film shows the

process of plowing on steep slopes as a concerted effort by man and

beast. Pilz asks a farmer where he would prefer to stand for a shot. Himmel

und Erde is both a historic document and modern cinema at the same time.

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Michael Pilz's HIMMEL UND ERDE

Available on DVD for INSTITUTIONAL SALE

    HIMMEL UND ERDE (HEAVEN AND EARTH)

     (1979 - 1982)      2-Disc Set

     Format: DVD PAL / Region 0, No Regional Code.

     Institutional Sale Price: $300.00 plus shipping & handling.

These DVDs are available on an exclusive basis for sale to educational organizations in North America (universities, libraries, & other cultural institutions), and include public performance rights. Public performance rights extend to use in classrooms and in other non-commercial settings where no admission is charged.

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