dOCUMENTA (13)

A 101-hour long reflection on the construction of Europe, its cultural identity and its foundations through the complete adaptation of the texts ‘Conversations with Goethe’ by J. P. Eckermann, ‘Hitler’s Table Talks’ and ‘Fassbinder über Fassbinder: Die ungekürzten Interviews’ (a compilation of interviews with the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which is used as a counterpoint to the first two books). The texts are read, page by page, by non-professional actors.

Inherently political, the three films that constitute Muster (Rushes) (2012) visually link to one another, with each roughly half-hour narrative (79 minutes combined for the single-channel version) taking place at a former Benedictine monastery outside of Kassel, Germany. This monastery functioned as a concentration camp during the Nazi era, a reformatory for girls in the 1970s, and later a psychiatric clinic.