Den teuren Toten (For the dearly Departed) | Dance Film 2001
Length: 25 min
The film was shown at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin 2002, among others.
Direction: Walter Bickmann
With: Jean Chaize, Beatrice Cordua, Brigitte Cuvelier, Andrea Hovenbitzer, Andreas Keller, Thomas Langkau, Manolo Montezuma, Cilla & Alois Rottensteiner
Camera & Editing: Walter Bickmann
The point of departure for this dance film is Durs Grünbein’s book of poems of the same title.
In the culture we live in, death has become a taboo. Our individual decay is hidden hysterically, dying is an embarassing appendix of life, that has lost all naturalness. Out of this hysteria arise – often unintentionally – rather funny moments, moments of black humor.
Durs Grünbein’s epitaphs are transcribed into a metaphorical language, which doesn’t re-tell anything, but reveals an expanded view behind the text.