Clemens Klopfenstein

  • Clemens Klopfenstein – Macao oder die Rückseite des Meeres (1988)

    Drama1981-1990Clemens KlopfensteinMysterySwitzerland

    Synopsis: Writer/Director Clemens Klopfenstein’s beautiful and profound movie Macao focuses on a married couple, Swiss linguists, who hike the Alps searching for rare words still uttered by rural populations. When on his way to a conference, the husband’s plane goes down over the ocean. The wife is advised to give up hope of ever seeing him alive, but her heart tells her otherwise. When he comes ashore on a tropical island-warm blue water, sun on white sands, palm trees-he and the other survivor, the plane’s pilot, are greeted by the smiling dark-skinned native speaking the island’s language. Back home, she waits to hear word from the search team; on the island, he learns a few words of the native language while he awaits rescue…Read More »

  • Clemens Klopfenstein – Der Ruf der Sibylla AKA The Call of Sybilla (1984)

    1981-1990Clemens KlopfensteinDramaRomanceSwitzerland

    Synopsis: The painter Balz, who sits jealously in Italy and harasses Clara, the actress, by telephone because of a lover. Balz wishes the rival all bad – and promptly he falls unhappily on his nose. When he succeeds in closing his mouth with a simple and very understandable wish, as required by his girlfriend, who has meanwhile arrived with him and is constantly babbling, the Italian driver realises that it is a brandy that helps his evil desires to come true. But she also discovers a magic potion that gives her the strength to transform things, day in night for example. She takes pleasure in taking advantage of it when Balz is at the wheel.Read More »

  • Clemens Klopfenstein – Geschichte der Nacht (1979)

    1971-1980ArchitectureClemens KlopfensteinDocumentaryExperimentalSwitzerland

    “It’s a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what ermerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful ‘composed’ soundtrack, from quietly humming stretlamps to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction.”
    Chris Auty, in: Programmheft London Film Co-opRead More »

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