Films by agnès b. and Christian Frosch

June 17 and 19, 2015
 
As part of its Premiere series, the Austrian Film Museum presents two major works about the dreams and pitfalls of youth – both created with very low budgets and a high investment of personal passion: the newest work of Austrian filmmaker Christian Frosch and the directorial debut of fashion designer agnès b.
 
Von jetzt an kein Zurück (From Now On No Turning Back, 2014) is a journey into the German provinces of the late 1960s, where the petit-bourgeois fog threatens to stifle the dreams of youth: Martin, far removed from his war-traumatized father, wants to change the world as a writer. His girlfriend, Ruby, wants to be a pop star, but is thwarted by her hellish Wehrmacht-trained father. Martin and Ruby's love on the run comes to an abrupt end – in church-run reform schools, where individuality is crushed by any and all means. At their reunion in the German Autumn of 1977, they are both haunted by the past. A dynamic and moving portrait of a generation with echoes of the legacies of Ulrike Meinhof and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
 
Je m'appelle Hmm... (My Name is Hmm..., 2013) is a subtle and distinctly anti-sensationalist film about an 11-year-old girl, who after being abused by her father, takes off and ends up riding along with a Scottish truck driver. Despite language barriers, the pair (Lou-Lélia Demerliac and artist Douglas Gordon) develops an unsentimental yet irresistible relationship on the road. Agnès B. (Agnès Troublé) is widely known as a fashion designer and as a patron of unique film artists ranging from Harmony Korine to Claire Denis. Here, she introduces herself as a highly interesting filmmaker in her own right. Sharing with Claire Denis not only the co-writer (Jean-Pol Fargeau), but also an enormously “tactile" sense of details, places and people, her coming of age story cum road movie finds rich formal equivalents for the young protagonist’s somnambulistic itinerary.
 
Both Christian Frosch (June 17) and Agnès B. (June 19) will be present to discuss their films at the Film Museum.