........................................................................................... Tate Cinema The Works Of Fred Kelemen ‘In a dark time the eye begins to see'. These are the words of poet Theodore Roethke's but could almost serve as the distilled imperative of the singular cinema of Germany's Fred Kelemen. A genuine auteur of the new moving image, Kelemen garnered much attention for his visionary 1990s trilogy – Fate (1994), Frost (1997) and Nightfall (1999) – in which the new profound social uncertainties of an emergent, radically altered Europe and the stark personal crises of its dispossessed were explored with a rigorous formal invention and a compelling emotional intensity. His works soon found some many fans across Europe and gained an underground cult status. These first few films are still in circulation today, and have become incredibly sough after in many moving image circles. Indeed, the late Susan Sontag found in Kelemen's work an urgent relevance, a kindred spirit to the meditative, metaphysical cinema of Sokurov, Béla Tarr and Sharunas Bartas, where profound enquiries into both being and the nature of the image are primary concerns. With his latest feature Krišana (Fallen) Kelemen continues on his defiantly chosen independent path to craft a brooding, new existential fable for an unstable new century. Swimming against the tide of almost all but contemporary cinema in his passionate and creation of a resonant, aesthetically bold and philosophically enlivened oeuvre, Kelemen's is a pressing, essential voice, needed more than ever in these all too fallen times. Born in Berlin (West) as son of a Hungarian mother and a German father, Fred Kelemen studied painting, music, philosophy, science of religions and of theatre sciences and worked in different ways theatres as a director's assistant before he began his studies at the German Film & TV Academy Berlin (dffb) in 1989. Since that time, he has made a number of films and videos as director and collaborated as Script Writer and Director of Photography and Cameraman with several film directors like Hectór Faver, Yesim Ustaoglu, Gariné Torossian and Béla Tarr. He directed several plays at different theatres in Germany and he is working as a guest lecturer at the Centre of Cinematographical Studies of Catalania (C.E.C.C.) in Barcelona/Spain, at the School of Visual Arts (ESBAG) also in Geneva, Switzerland and at the New Latvian Cultural Academy (LKA) in Riga. Retrospectives of his work had been presented all over the world from Australia to Greenland. In 2005 retrospectives of his films will follow in many eastern European states and also in Russia. Fred Kelemen is member of the European Film Academy. Throughout his years as an artistic and often under-hyped director, Kelemen has likened himself to the emerging avant-garde of the turn of the century. His unmissable style has accredited him with some of the fields top achievements, with nods from film festivals around the Globe, The Tate Modern will bring together his first trilogy of films for a night of pure cinema gold on weeknights throughout the coming winter, further details of these showings can be found at Tate online and in future Edition publications. Also in the new year Fred Kelemen himself will grace the Turbine Hall for an interactive session with fans and critics of his work. Expect fireworks, film and fracas as he delves into the darkest depth of his work, life, times and career. It is assured to be an unmissable night. Tickets are available from the Tate box office.
edition | Tate Modern | Autumn 2006 | Page 16, Page 17
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