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30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

Hamlet – This is Your Family

Hamlet - This is Your Family

Peter Kern | Germany | 2001 | 79' | | IFFR 2002

A provocative and ironic-pamfletteering documentary about Peter Kern’s colleague director and enfant terrible Christoph Schlingensief. Schlingensief has a reputation as a film and theatre director in doing his nut and causing scandals. When he was asked for a theatre project in Zurich, they knew what they were taking on, but he still managed to raise hackles in political and cultural circles.As far as Schlingensief is concerned, a theatre project never exists in isolation: it is both a media event and a form of political action. He choose to perform Hamlet in Zurich, but then as part of a so-called Nazi-Aussteigerprogramm, an officially grant-aided project to offer guidance to neo-Nazis who want toleave the movement and are seeking a new place in society. Schlingensief let the ex-neo-Nazis play themselves in a very classical Hamlet. His provocation in so-called Nazi-free Switzerland was not appreciated. When he added fuel to the flames by calling for the local political party SVP to be banned, his media offensive made front-page news far beyond Switzerland too.Kern operated with his film team, from within and from behind the scenes, as a confident of Schlingensief, and as actor in the play: he plays King Claudius.

Film details

Country of production
Germany
Year
2001
Festival edition
IFFR 2002
Length
79"
Medium/Format
35mm

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