GERHARD (2025)

An ecstatic biopic about the world’s most successful living painter. In vivid images, this AI hybrid film sheds light on the social role of painting in the tension between creativity, capital investment, and spirituality. We are currently in the transition phase from analog to artificial reproducibility. Gerhard’s unique painting techniques, especially squeegeeing, have triggered worldwide hype. His techniques and ideas are being adapted, refined, and improved by global “protagonists” and then flooded the markets and social media. The myth of the “genius” writes itself into the DNA of an increasingly uncontrollable creation chain as a fabulous and controversial homage.

Ein berauschendes Biopic über den erfolgreichsten lebenden Maler der Welt. In lebhaften Bildern beleuchtet dieser KI-Hybridfilm die gesellschaftliche Rolle der Malerei im Spannungsfeld von Kreativität, Kapitalanlage und Spiritualität. Wir befinden uns gerade mitten in der Übergangsphase von analoger zu künstlicher Reproduzierbarkeit. Gerhards einzigartige Maltechniken, insbesondere das Rakeln, haben einen weltweiten Hype ausgelöst. Seine Techniken und Ideen werden von globalen „Akteuren“ adaptiert, verfeinert, und verbessert und anschliessend die Märkte (+Social Media) geflutet. Der Mythos des “Genies” schreibt sich als märchenhafte und kontroverse „Hommage“ in die DNA einer immer unkontrollierbareren Schöpfungskette.

 

World Premiere at the 54.Film Festival Rotterdam

Trailer

Cadavres Exquis Vivants (since 2008)

Living Cadavres?

The otherwise proud and headstrong Katherine Hepburn gazes, close to tears and awaiting salvation, at her existence carved in stone. Bewitched into filling up in a coffee maker in a repetitive ritual, the lit fuse only seconds away from explosion. Franz von Assisi, who speaks to the animals, is a coarse guy here, who drivels while feeding a little golden bird, his fidgety lower regions meanwhile attempting to keep a globe rotating in a bonbonnière. The viewer is not really convinced by the butcher boy’s tenderness towards this delicate creature and is left with a sense of foreboding. Or Felix Mendelssohn, the exceptional composer who converted to Christianity, who is here portrayed as a provocative ruffian with the head of a sun-god and the feet of a crab. Back home at the dinner table he provokes a middle-class farce by affronting his mother with his exposed genitals. He does so, as is suggested by the voice-over, in order to finally begin his own life and to impress his sweetheart’s or sister.

Plantheon (2016)

Every body’s life is a private research-center of happiness, sorrow and pain.‚¨Our film presents Teuri’s one. Plantheon is an intimate and experimental portrait of the Finnish artist Teuri Haarla, and focuses on his wholistic methods dealing with infancy trauma and social pressures. The film accompanies him while building a tower, making his ego-melting rituals, reflecting religion and philosopy, keeping balance with family. ‚¨“Lets just say that after childhood I needed some rest‚. ‚¨The film arose from the friendship between Ulu Braun and Haarla, which allowed a spontaneous and artistic co-operation of documentation.