Grape Lights

Berlin-Charlottenburg, April 10, 1917 Dear Sir, You made me unhappy. I bought your "Metamorphosis" as a gift for my cousin. But, she is incapable of understanding the story. My cousin gave it to her mother who doesn't understand it either. The mother gave the book to my other cousin, who also didn't find an explanation. Now they have written to me: They expect me to explain the story to them as I am the doctor in the family. But I am at a loss. Sir! I have spent months in the trenches exchanging blows with the Russians without batting an eyelid. But I could not stand losing my good name with my cousins. Only you can help me. You must do it, as you are the one who landed me in this mess. So please tell me what my cousin should think about "Metamorphosis." Most respectfully yours, Dr. Siegfried Wolff

“Documentary should not be simply about film or art—it should have a direct relationship with the reality that we live in every day, a direct relationship with social work. From this it follows that one person making a documentary film is not important; what is important is many people working together for its sake.” - Wu Wenguang Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers (1990):

Wittgenstein Tractatus (1992) - Péter Forgács

Cannot wait to see this....

Patrick Bokanowski's La femme qui se poudre (1972)

Julio Cortázar Axolotl (1956) There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl. I got to them by chance one spring morning when Paris was spreading its peacock tail after a wintry Lent. I was heading down the boulevard Port-Royal, then I took Saint-Marcel and L'Hôpital and saw green among all that grey and remembered the lions. I was friend of the lions and panthers, but had never gone into the dark, humid building that was the aquarium. I left my bike against tbe gratings and went to look at the tulips. The lions were sad and ugly and my panther was asleep. I decided on the aquarium, looked obliquely at banal fish until, unexpectedly, I hit it off with the axolotls. I stayed watching them for an hour and left, unable to think of anything else. In the library at Sainte-Geneviève, I consulted ...

Margaret Tait's stunningly beautiful A Portrait of Ga (1952). -Thanks to der Blue Angel for pointing this short film out to me