Claudia von Alemann & Reinold E. Thiel | 1968 | West-Germany | 45’ | EN subs

Cavia is beyond excited to welcome German auteur, Claudia von Alemann, to our cinema for this exceptional weekend in April, showing two of her films from a lifelong oeuvre dedicated to political cinema in all its forms. In this exceptional document, shot at the end of December 1967 during the fourth edition of the EXPRMNTL festival in Knokke-le-Zoute, Claudia von Alemann records, a few months before the events of May 68, the prelude of the cultural revolution. Yoko Ono, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Armand Gatti, Harun Farocki, Holger Meins, Shirley Clarke, Stephen Dwoskin and Jacques Ledoux are among the protagonists of this fascinating collective experience.

The screening will be followed by a debate and Q&A between Claudia von Alemann and Xavier Gárcia Bardón, a curator, researcher and writer based in Brussels. He has conducted extensive research on the history of the Knokke-le-Zoute EXPRMNTL film festival, to which he has devoted his PhD in Film Studies at Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, under the supervision of Nicole Brenez.

This screening is part of ‘40 chairs, 40 films, 40 years’, Filmhuis Cavia’s 40th anniversary program which will be held all throughout 2023, rewiring and re-reeling images from our past, projecting new ones towards our future.