A tribute to German films made outside mainstream production channels

The titans of prewar Expressionism and New German Cinema have never lacked for repertory programming slots, but the riches of German film culture don’t stop there, as this series of deep cuts from the Deutsche Kinemathek Archives—including films released from the 1960s to the 1990s—decisively proves.

Bringing together such works as Pia Frankenberg’s tongue-in-cheek charmer Ain’t Nothin’ Without You (1985), Michael Brynntrup’s punky avant-garde Super 8 Biblical epic Jesus – The Film (1985), and Christoph Schlingensief’s splatterhouse reunification-era satire The German Chainsaw Massacre (1990), “An Alternate Cinema”—adapted from a program that played the 74th Berlin International Film Festival—is a tribute to German films made outside mainstream production channels, brimming with outsider adventurousness and anything-goes daring.

Co-presented with Metrograph and Deutsche Kinemathek.

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Film program

December 7, 4:40pm
Will Tremper, The Endless Night
(West Germany, 1963, 85 min.)

December 7, 8:20pm
Ingemo Engström, Dark Spring
(West Germany, 1970, 89 min.)

December 13, 6:30pm
Michael Brynntrup, Jesus – The Film
(West Germany, 1986, 128 min.)
Post-screening Q&A with director Michael Brynntrup

December 13, 9:30pm
Christoph Schlingensief, The German Chainsaw Massacre
(Germany, 1990, 63 min.)
Introduction by Annika Haupts, Deutsche Kinemathek

December 14, 2:40pm
Pia Frankenberg, Ain’t Nothin’ Without You
(West Germany, 1985, 91 min.)
Post-screening Q&A with director Pia Frankenberg

Further screenings highlighting rarely seen, newly restored films from the Deutsche Kinemathek archives take place at the Goethe-Institut New York and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles.