Program 1 (total: 60:00 mins)

1.
Performances 1, documentation of eight performances: Red Limbs, Red Breast, Black Expansion, Black Cockfeathers, Head Balance, Shoulder Extensions, Feather Instrument, Simon-Sigmar; 1972, 16mm, color, 22:00 mins; Camera: B. Liebner, K. P. Brehmer; video edition includes supplementary performances from 1970 and 1971.

2.
Performances 2, documentation of nine performances: Unicorn, Head Extension, White Body Fan, Finger Gloves, Feather Finger, Gavin, Cockfeather Mask, Pencil Mask, Cockatoo Mask; 1973, 16mm, color, sound, 38:00 mins; Production: Helmut Wietz; with D. Finke, Gavin, Karin Halding, E. Mitzka.

In Head Balance, Shoulder Extensions, Head Extension and White Body Fan we witness transformations of the body, accompanied by tinges of alchemical archetypes: through horns, feathers and wings the body becomes a mythical creature.

It is the way in which Head Balance and Shoulder Extensions, as well as Unicorn, are filmed that prompts this allusion to primeval imagery. A figure bearing the body extension approaches from afar and then mysteriously vanishes – these fantastic creatures are ‘apparitions’. In iconographic terms, horns, feathers and wings are all related and, from Dionysus to Siva as well as in most shamanistic rites, they are unmistakable emblems of superhuman power.

A number of sequences involving body painting opening the film Performances 1 show the body either overcoming or succumbing to strange manifestations that - in the light of the artist’s recent convalescence, should be seen as metaphors for illness, pain and recovery. In Red Limbs the head and limbs are progressively isolated from the body by red paint, and in Black Expansion the application of paint devours the body, making it seem to vanish.

1.
Berlin (10 Nov. 1974 – 28 Jan. 1975) – Exercises in nine parts: Dreaming under water of things afar, documentation of eight performances with an epilogue: Touching the walls with both hands simultaneously, Blinking, Feathers dance on the shoulders, Keeping hold of those unfaithful legs, Two little fish remember a dance, Rooms meet in mirrors, Shedding skin between moist tongue leaves, Cutting one’s hair with two pairs of scissors simultaneously, When a woman and her lover lie on one side looking at each other; and she twines her legs around the man’s legs with the window wide open, it is the oasis; 1974/75, DVD, color, sound, 42:00 mins; Production: Helmut Wietz; with Rebecca Horn, Guido Kerst, Lisa Liccini, Otto Sander, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Michel Würthle.

Far from being yet another compendium of documentation of previously created performances, these nine pieces are a self-contained series of performance sequences that were conceived expressly for a room the artist had rented for the sole purpose of making this film. The film describes the intense relationship between a sculpture and the space it inhabits and gradually redefines. In this aspect, Berlin Exercises should be seen as Rebecca Horn’s first large-scale installation.

2.
Der Eintänzer, 1978, DVD, color, sound, 47:00 mins, English language, full-length feature film; Written and directed by: Rebecca Horn, Production and Camera: Bodo Kessler, Camera assistant: Peter Schnall, Editor: Inge Kuhnert, Sound: Morning Pastorak, Voice-over: Rebecca Horn, Collaboration on objects: Dieter Müller; with Timothy Baum (Max), Greta Konstantinescu (Geta), Elisabeth Martin (Mary), Kathleen Martin (Kathleen), Nada (Sushi-Chef), David Warrilow (Frazer) and Kim Araki, Lisa Friedmann, Kristina Maria Jaroshenka, Susanne Diana Lee, Donna Ritchie

Sunday, May 25th at 9:30 p.m. – Jerusalem Cinematheque Tuesday 

June 3rd at 8:00 p.m. – The Center for Contemporary Art

Cutting Through the Past, 1995, a documentary by Rebecca Horn for the retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, with a conversation between Donald Sutherland and Rebecca Horn; DVD, color, sound, 55:00 mins, English language.

Sunday, May 25th at 7:00 p.m. –Tel Aviv Cinematheque Tuesday, May 27th at 9:30 p.m. – Jerusalem Cinematheque

La Ferdinanda: Sonata for a Medici Villa (1981) is staged in a grand Renaissance hunting seat. The setting serves as a haven for tranquil repose (for Caterina de Dominicis, a former opera singer and the owner of the villa), for convalescence (for ballet dancer Simona), for hiding (for Dr. Marchetti, now in forced retirement following a series of scandals) and for rehearsal (for the cello player). These functions are so varied and the setting so self-contained that the villa is experienced increasingly as a metaphor for human worlds.

Wednesday, May 28th at 9:30 p.m. – Jerusalem Cinematheque

Buster’s Bedroom, 1990, DVD, color, sound, 104:00 mins, English language, full-length feature film, a co-production with Metropolis Filmproduktion GmbH & Co KG, Berlin, Les Productions du Verseau, Montreal, and Prole Film LDA, Lisbon, in co-operation with Limbo Film AG, Zürich, and the Westdeutsche Rundfunk, Cologne; Directed by: Rebecca Horn, Screenplay: Rebecca Horn and Martin Mosebach, based on a story by Rebecca Horn, Produced by: George Reinhart, Camera: Sven Nykvist, Editor: Barbara von Weitershausen, Sound editor: Gisela Lüpke, Assistant sound editor: Oliver Gieth, Carla Bogalheiro, Art direction: Nana von Hugo, Music: Sergej Kuryokhin, Ingfried Hoffmann, Sound: Uwe Kersten, Costume designer: Françoise Laplante, Construction of objects: Hasje Boeyen, Production: Luciano Gloor, Line producer: Udo Heiland; with Donald Sutherland (O’Connor), Geraldine Chaplin (Diana Daniels), Valentina Cortese (Serafina Tannenbaum), Taylor Mead (James), Amanda Ooms (Micha Morgan), Ari Snyder (Lenny Silver), David Warrilow (Mr. Warlock), Martin Wuttke (Joe) and Maria Dulce, Abel Fernandes, Nina Franoszek, Tilly Lauenstein, Lena Lessing, Steve Olson, Mary Woronow.

Buster’s Bedroom (1990) is staged in Nirvana House, a psychiatric clinic which one could imagine having played a role in Buster Keaton’s life and even today still being a place of refuge for erstwhile Hollywood stars.

A pivotal character that transcends his appearance in Buster's Bedroom is, O’Connor, (played by Donald Sutherland) a patient turned doctor in a psychiatric hospital, he passionately champions the idea of immobility as a means of achieving liberation. On his advice, Diana Daniels (Geraldine Chaplin), a once-famous swimmer, consents to being strapped in a wheelchair in the hope of accumulating sufficient energy to let her resume her perilous diving. Following in the footsteps of Buster Keaton, Micha Morgan (Amanda Ooms) is also made to appreciate the value of paralysis. Obsessed with the desire to make her his patient, O’Connor straps her in a straitjacket and locks her inside a room in Nirvana House. Her spectacular escape from the straitjacket (a trick Keaton himself learned from his uncle Harry Houdini) and her flight from Nirvana House turns the film’s anticipated ending completely on its head.