In 1948 Paul Celan, a concentration camp survivor and esteemed post-war poet, met Ingeborg Bachmann, a fellow writer whose father was a Nazi. By 1971, Celan had committed suicide, before which the erstwhile lovers met on just one more occasion. However, they had amassed almost twenty years of long-distance correspondence. Inspired by fact and fiction, where document and literature intersect in the letters, Ruth Beckermann and writing partner Ina Hartwig (a literary agent) embarked on a screenplay based on the exchanges. The result is a cross between observational documentary and essay film, with a deceptively simple approach: two actors (Plaschg and Rupp) read the letters in a recording studio. Applying a documentarian’s intuition to this set up, Beckermann keeps her camera rolling between readings and into cigarette breaks. Capturing Plaschg and Rupp’s palpable on-screen chemistry, Beckermann succeeds in evoking a contemporary ambulatory romance from the historical source material.
Dir-Prod Ruth Beckermann
Scr Ina Hartwig, Ruth Beckermann
With Anja Plaschg, Laurence Rupp
Austria 2016
89min
UK Distribution Contemporary Films
Thursday 06 October 2016 21:00,
ICA Cinema, Screen 1
Friday 07 October 2016 16:00,
BFI Southbank, NFT3
