THIS MOVIE IS A GIFT

IN MEMORIAM OSKAR SALOMONOWITZ (20.07.2008 – 27.10.2020)


Daniel Spoerri creates art out of found objects, which lose their function as soon as he integrates them into his works. Anja Salomonowitz makes films that are devoted to the visualization of times and conflicts. THIS MOVIE IS A GIFT stands at the crossroad between the two and intertwines their work in a very personal way.

Already the title of the film suggests that it is more about giving than representation: Salomonowitz thanks Spoerri with this portrait. In turn, he gave her one of his assemblages as a gift, which has a porcelain heart that was connected with her deceased father in a privileged place within it. The encounter with the artist in his studio, a museum of discarded things, became the occasion to bind his work with these objects, these "trap pictures," back to his biography. Spoerri, born Feinstein, is the son of a Romanian Jew who was abducted and murdered. For the later founder of nouveau réalisme, Switzerland meant a new start. But the memories of a traumatic past carve their own paths: Salomonowitz also makes Spoerri´s artistic practice visible as an attempt to confront the lost part of his family history.

At the same time, the film looks ahead and extends its memory into the future by staging Salomonowitz´s son Oskar as a stand-in and opposite of Spoerri. He repeats some of the artist´s trains of thought and adds new semantic vibes simply through his different linguistic nuances. The artist no longer speaks about himself, his life and his activity reverberate in the mind of another. Nothing is lost, it merely reassembles again and again in surprising ways.
(Dominik Kamalzadeh)

Translation: Lisa Rosenblatt


Daniel Spoerri arranges things into one of his assemblages as if he were contributing something to the order of life. Oskar Salomonowitz, the filmmaker´s son, vividly brings the artist´s thoughts closer to us, as if they were his own. The spoons of the late father of Anja Salomonowitz are added to the cycle of life. People die, things remain. By also updating Daniel Spoerri´s past through the child, the film courageously undertakes a new documentary path of cinematic, biographical representation. Spoerri´s father, Isaac Feinstein, was murdered in the Holocaust and Spoerri´s life was shaped by this disappearance. In his work, he says, the things found at the flea market, which he collects and nails to the wall as compositions, no longer disappear. He has captured life for a moment. (production note)

Trailer
Orig. Title
DIESER FILM IST EIN GESCHENK
Year
2019
Country
Austria
Duration
72 min
Category
Documentary
Orig. Language
German
Subtitles
German, English, french, italian
Credits
Director
Anja Salomonowitz
Script
Anja Salomonowitz
Cinematography
Martin Putz
Music
Bernhard Fleischmann
Editing
Eleonora Camizzi, Petra Zöpnek
Sound Design
Veronika Hlawatsch
short film director
Daniel Spoerri
Sponsoring
Archivio Conz
short film director
Tony Morgan
Executive Producer
Anja Salomonowitz
Thanks to
The Performance Agency
Participant
Oskar Salomonowitz, Federico Vecchi, Daniel Spoerri
Supported by
BKA - innovative film, Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Available Formats
DCP 2K scope (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:2,39
Sound Format
5.1 surround
Frame Rate
25 fps
Color Format
colour, b/w
Digital File (prores, h264) (Distribution Copy)
Festivals (Selection)
2019
Neapel – Artecinema Napoli
Viennale - Vienna Int. Film Festival
Jihlava - International Documentary Festival
Jihlava - IDFF East Silver Market
2020
Graz - Diagonale, Festival des österreichischen Films