Der Atem filmconcert with Christina Vantzou & Echo Collective at Volksbühne Berlin / Monday, 27.01.2020

The film DER ATEM (The Breath) will be re-arranged and interpreted as a modern city symphony by the American composer Christina Vantzou and the renowned Belgian ensemble ‚Echo Collective‘ for this event to the original sound.

With this worldwide unique film-concert, the ‘Volksbühne’ presents DER ATEM by Uli M Schueppel for the first time back in Berlin, after its the completely sold-out premiere’s at the 69th Berlinale and its journey through the international festival circuit since.

https://youtu.be/LCNI6TtkpF0

The compositions by Christina Vantzou are dense, emphatically engaging and accompany the original score for the film. She’s previously collaborated with the music collective Echo Collective multiple times, in both the recording studio as well as international concert halls. The Echo Collective has already distanced itself from the classical establishment with its collaborations with Johan Johansson, Hildur Gudnadóttir and Dustin O’Halloran, among others, in order to innovate with their orchestral music in contemporary genres.

The film by Uli M Schueppel embarks on a poetic-abstract journey from breath to breath. Through the Berlin night, we encounter people in diverse situations and accompany them as they each move within their own realities. Short episodes and stanzas emerge, telling stories of stagnation and moments of holding one’s breath – out of pain, fear or happiness. The breath continuously merges. As endless (breath) movements. As songs from the darkness of the city of Berlin …

“Many of the insistent stories linger long after the end of the film with the audience. Her emotional power is enhanced by Schueppel’s strong stylistic choices. Cinematographer Cornelius Plache develops maximum visual poetry out of high-contrast, analogue16mm footage, while the emotionally disturbing drone score of Missouri-born avant-rock composer Christina Vantzou creates one adds extra layer of weird beauty …” (Hollywood Reporter – S.Dalton)

Uli M Schueppel lives as a filmmaker in Berlin and Athens. In his 15 feature films, he drifts through all genres, from (& with) Nick Cave to film essays about emotional geography, from the Siberian gulags to Tanzania’s living room, from the nihilistic outcry to the all-embracing breath. But mostly through Berlin. Schueppel’s films are always adventures in the choice of narrative structures and their formal implementation. They seduce the audience – always driven by music – on journeys into the unexpected.