Museum Songspiel – The Netherlands 20XX
Posted by jimini - 15/03/11 at 12:03 pmDon’t miss the premiere of ‘Museum Songspiel – The Netherlands 20XX’ – new film by Chto Delat? whom I have been working with over the last few weeks – tomorrow at 8pm!
Some pictures taken on the set…
Dmitry arranging the decor/costumes
Security Guard & Museum Director
Asya on the set
An injured Daniel Rovai
Cameraman, Producer & Director in Van Abbe Museum.
Text below courtesy of SMART Project Space…
‘Museum Songspiel: The Netherlands 20XX is a powerfully evocative film, set against the backdrop of the Dutch political scene in the year 20XX, it tells the story of a group of immigrants fleeing deportation by the authorities. Having escaped transportation, the film follows the immigrants struggle as they seek refuge in the museum, under the assumption that this safe haven is the last bastion of free speech and supports the politically oppressed. When the refugees are discovered a cogent, stimulating conversation develops between the director of the museum, the curator, the artist, a t.v reporter and the museum attendants. The film is an eerie reminder that any system can become monstrous if its masters seal it off from challenge and change and if popular belief in it is blind and fanatical.
Chto Delat? draw on the mode of ‘songspiel’ employed in musical theatre developed by playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill in the early twentieth century, which presents political and social concerns through the accessible and often humorous form of song. In this manner Museum Songspiel reframes the profound discrepancy between arts’ inherent elitist discourse and proletarian resistance deftly accomplished in a circumspectly choreographed dance by the migrants. Unity and cohesion are achieved through an elegiac music score composed by Mikhail Krutik and performed by the museum attendants. The film presents diametrically opposed positions in what can be described as the force between individual and collective reason, between individual expression and community.’