Synopsis
Director Christoph Schlingensief's 'Heimat' films (Georg Seeßlen), performance art, installations and provocative theatrical, television, operatic and artistic productions shaped the cultural and political discourse in Germany for two decades before his death in 2010 at just 49 years of age.SCHLINGENSIEF – A Voice that Shook the Silence by Bettina Böhler
is the first film that attempts to exhaustively document the vast spectrum of this exceptional artist's oeuvre.
The film focuses on Christoph Schlingensief as a 'family person' (Schlingensief on Schlingensief) who dealt equally with his relationship to his parents and his relationship to Germany in his work. 'SCHLINGENSIEF – A Voice that Shook the Silence' traces his development from pubescent filmmaker with an artistic bloodlust to revolutionary stage director in Berlin and Bayreuth, and, ultimately, to Germany's 'national artist,' who was purportedly venerated by all and invited to create the German Pavilion for the 2011 Venice Biennale.
'SCHLINGENSIEF – A Voice that Shook the Silence' explores Schlingensief's untiring, and ultimately inexhaustible, love-hate relationship to Germany, to its high culture, and to its petite-bourgeoisie sentiments – which he attributed to himself more than anyone else – via scenes of East Germans being made into sausage (Blackest Heart), shouts of 'Kill Helmut Kohl!' (documenta X) and an attempt to rehabilitate Wagner (Parsifal).
With: Christoph Schlingensief, Margit Carstensen, Irm Hermann, Alfred Edel, Udo Kier, Sophie Rois, Bernhard Schütz, Helge Schneider, Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, Susanne Bredehöft, Tilda Swinton