Films by Barbara Gies

Germany 2016, 27 min
by Corinna Belz

Until her early death at the age of 31 in 1907, Paula Modersohn-Becker had two great loves: the art and the city of Paris. With great pleasure and determination, she explored both.Between 1900 and 1906, she visited Paris four times, spending a total of two years in the French capital. Like a sponge, the young German sucks up the Belle Epoque. She discovers Cézanne, meets Rodin, attends courses in private academies, draws daily in the Louvre. With excerpts from Paula Modersohn-Beckers' graphic and humorous letters, we expolore a unique city in dialogue with a young woman. A film about love for Paris and about the courage and self-esteem of a young artist who continues to develop herself and her work and thus became a pioneer of modernity.

Germany 2008, 90 min
by Regina Schilling

For two years, Schilling accompanied this exceptional actor and interviewed some of his temporarycompanions such as Werner Herzog, Herbert Achternbusch and his lover Luisa Francia. Bierbichleropenly talks about his love-hate relationship with the theatre, the origins and his longing for art,his inner conflict with being an actor and his search for new ways including singing Mahler andEisler songs and writing a book. With diary-like video recordings, the film creates especially movingmoments in which Bierbichler would never have accepted a camera team. Schilling succeeds in creatinga complex portrait of a gentle berserk who filled the German stages and films with his uncanny,corporeal presence. A headstrong person who radically exposes himself and anarchically rages againstthe world.