Meeting Gorbachev: A film by Werner Herzog and André Singer
Categories: Cinema
Date: 13/06/2019
Time: 19 h 00 - 22 h 00
Location: Center for Fine Arts - BOZAR
Links: iCal - Google Calendar
Screening of a film and interview the directors André Singer
Every year, Brussels hosts three major film festivals in Germany: the Berlinale Forum, the DOK Leipzig and the Duisburger Filmwoche. In the program of DOK Leipzig, this time we have selected Meeting Gorbachev by Werner Herzog and André Singer. This documentary focuses on the life and work of former Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev and reviews the end of the USSR. At the end of the premiere of this film in Belgium, co-director André Singer will discuss it with Ralph Eue of DOK Leipzig.
About the film Meeting Gorbachev
(UK / USA / Germany 2018, German / English / Polish / Russian, ST: English, 91 ‘)
In the second half of the twentieth century, few politicians were as influential as Mikhail Gorbachev, secretary-general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (PCUS) from 1985 to 1991. His term of office was marked by the the beginning of nuclear disarmament, glasnost, perestroika, German reunification and the dislocation of the USSR. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1990. Director Werne Herzog does not hide his admiration for Gorbachev. With his co-director André Singer, they visited him three times in 2017 and 2018. Aged 88, Gorbachev looks back on his political career and his private life. Archival documents enrich the interview sequence. Meeting Gorbachevis not content to recall the historical contributions of the politician, but offers an approach to his way of thinking and his experience.
The directors Werner Herzog and André Singer
Werner Herzog was born in 1942 in Munich and grew up in a mountain village in Bavaria. After studying history and German-speaking literature in Munich and Pittsburgh, he produced his first film in 1961, at the age of 19. He has scripted, shot and produced for over sixty features and documentaries, including Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972), Fitzcarraldo (1982) and The Cave of Lost Dreams (2010). Werner Herzog lives between Munich and Los Angeles.
André Singeris a documentary and anthropologist. Born in London, he studied in England at Buckland University Hall and at Oxford University. From the 1970s, he worked for Discovery Channel, Alliance Atlantis and the BBC. Since 1992, he has collaborated regularly with Werner Herzog and has made 15 films together including (the sci-fi film) The Wild Blue Yonder in 2005. Singer has chaired the Royal Anthropological Institute in London and taught at the University of Southern California from Los Angeles and the University of Westminster in London.
The German Film Festivals on Tour cycle is a joint initiative of the Goethe-Institut in Brussels and BOZAR Cinéma.
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