On February 8th, 2020, the beloved and highly esteemed German actor Volker Spengler passed away, just eight days before his 81st birthday. Spengler not only left behind a mammoth legacy, including works with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Christoph Schlingensief, and Ulrike Ottinger, but also touched the lives of countless artists, musicians, and actors around him.
Please join us this November at Spectacle for the NYC premiere of HIGHFALUTIN, an intimate documentary directed by Hans Broich, focusing on stories from those around Spengler who knew and loved him best. Included in FOCUS are two transgressive post-reunification films from the late artist Christoph Schlingensief that showcase Volker: THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE 120 DAYS OF BOTTROP.
Special thanks to SIXPACKFILM and FILMGALERIE 451.
HIGHFALUTIN
Dir. Hans Broich, 2021
Austria & Germany. 96 min.
German with English Subtitles.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 8 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 7:30 PM
Told in collage of voices around a certain dinner table in Berlin’s Diener Tattersall, a series of collaborators join a discussion on the actor Volker Spengler. Detailing many anecdotes: large and small, adoring and frustrated. HIGHFALUTIN soon becomes as much an examination of those speaking as it is the one being spoken about.
THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE
Dir. Christoph Schlingensief, 1990
Germany. 63 min.
German with English Subtitles.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 5 PM
In 1990, a group of East Germans cross the border to visit the West. But their journey takes a turn for the wurst when they encounter a psychopathic cannibal family who plans to turn them into sausages. Filmed shortly after German reunification, THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE combines B-Movie horror industrial spectacle with experimental political satire. This is the film that put Christoph Schlingensief on the map.
THE 120 DAYS OF BOTTROP
Dir. Christoph Schlingensief, 1997
Germany. 60 min.
German with English Subtitles.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 10 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27 – 10 PM
A who’s-who of actors congregate together to create the last great piece of New German Film – A remake of the 1973 movie SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM. An endlessly referential piece of homage cinema disguised as a putrid Wateresque trash opus. Fassbinder this ain’t.