Dietmar Brehm

Everyday objects made unfamiliar by strange lightning.

In 1994 I bought a small Hi8 video camera though I didn't really want one, as I already had a large video camera. The large camera was OK, but it was too big to carry along on walks. It didn't have legs so that I could lead it around on a leash like a dog. The little camera, on the other hand, was like a baby which could be stowed in my bag. The salesman was surprised when I kissed the baby camera after he handed it to me. I immediately set off on my first stroll with camera. I thought it was great because I could immediately film everything my eyes stumbled upon. The baby camera was like a gun and ready to go after visual prey.

2006 short by Dietmar Brehm

In Kalkito we see three people who have been filmed to be two-dimensional like a transfer. A naked male teacher whips a naked female teacher until she is docile while a second naked female teacher, who is reversed in the fame, directs the action. Kalkito, as are other films in this series, is not meant to portray sexual excitement. They show bodies fading away.

An experimental collage film pieced together from random bits of 16mm film strips.

2001 short by Dietmar Brehm

Everyday objects made unfamiliar by strange lightning.

Everyday objects made unfamiliar by strange lightning.

In 1994 I bought a small Hi8 video camera though I didn't really want one, as I already had a large video camera. The large camera was OK, but it was too big to carry along on walks. It didn't have legs so that I could lead it around on a leash like a dog. The little camera, on the other hand, was like a baby which could be stowed in my bag. The salesman was surprised when I kissed the baby camera after he handed it to me. I immediately set off on my first stroll with camera. I thought it was great because I could immediately film everything my eyes stumbled upon. The baby camera was like a gun and ready to go after visual prey.

2006 short by Dietmar Brehm

In Kalkito we see three people who have been filmed to be two-dimensional like a transfer. A naked male teacher whips a naked female teacher until she is docile while a second naked female teacher, who is reversed in the fame, directs the action. Kalkito, as are other films in this series, is not meant to portray sexual excitement. They show bodies fading away.

An experimental collage film pieced together from random bits of 16mm film strips.

2001 short by Dietmar Brehm

1993 short by Dietmar Brehm

"With Praxis-1 I began an extensive video series, conceived in a structure of successively numbered scenes, which is parallel to all my other film/video works and paintings. Each part of the Praxis-series is approximately 20 minutes long. Both purely video works and also transformed reflections on a few of my 16mm films are shown after having been put in a new light by means of electronic transformations of the picture." (Dietmar Brehm)

Experimental found footage film based on ALEXIS SORBAS.

Experimental found footage film based on ALEXIS SORBAS.

In the spring of 1997 I placed the camera in front of a mirror and filmed the camera and myself at the same time as manipulating the camera in ways not recommended in the instructions for use. When the film came back from being developed, I was forced to think "Whew". The camera looked much better that I did and I wanted to destroy the film immediately. Dietmar Brehm

A skull and a song.

A skull and a song.

Hallo Mabuse captivates through its reduction, in which a conspiratorial narrative takes place, but even more so, the images themselves appear ambiguous, obscure, untrustworthy. A nod of the head, which seems treacherous in its mechanical repetition, meets the profile of a bearded man who does not appear to react at all in a suggested counter shot. The slight flickering of the image further intensifies the impression of an illicit agreement, of witnessing a crooked handshake. The ringing of the unseen telephone and the constant ticking of a clock lend the events a limited temporality. Something is running out, and in doing so, is also already reaching its end, a ghostly final act, which is anticipated by an explosion and breaks off with the sound of a falling guillotine.

Hallo Mabuse captivates through its reduction, in which a conspiratorial narrative takes place, but even more so, the images themselves appear ambiguous, obscure, untrustworthy. A nod of the head, which seems treacherous in its mechanical repetition, meets the profile of a bearded man who does not appear to react at all in a suggested counter shot. The slight flickering of the image further intensifies the impression of an illicit agreement, of witnessing a crooked handshake. The ringing of the unseen telephone and the constant ticking of a clock lend the events a limited temporality. Something is running out, and in doing so, is also already reaching its end, a ghostly final act, which is anticipated by an explosion and breaks off with the sound of a falling guillotine.

Sometimes I film so that the actors seem to belong to the undead. The construction of the Found-Footage-Party shows Russian, Japanese, American and my own material which is hallucinated into a matrix in which functioning and non-functioning body parts appear as optical lubricant whilst simultaneously we hear someone shaving.

Experimental found footage compilation based on the director's own earlier work.

Experimental found footage compilation based on the director's own earlier work.

Organics begins with the observation of a Zorro mask and a distorted / veiled woman's face. A shot of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris develops into a women's foot scene which leads to a longer kiss scene punctuated by an explosion, falling leaves, a tank, touching hands, a hand in a plaster cast, bunches of grass and a dark cellar door. After observation of a skeleton detail, the found footage actors become involved in slowly feeling each others body. A man swings a necklace back and forth like a pendulum, a head being bandaged, attempts at face make-up, details of operations... in a flickering, pumping screen light until, in the end, "Hey Joe" centres the picture briefly with his penis. After the hand movements which follow, the veiled face of a woman appears again, longer this time, to be observed by "Hey Joe" until the film floodlight is turned off.

A man with a mustache and suspenders is gazing intently at his counterpart, who remains in a blur for two minutes. His slow-motion movements, as well as the position of the body, vaguely suggest that an intimate encounter is involved. The fetish figure in leather becomes a visual conundrum that infuses one image with desire while being content with remaining an object. Two fingers slowly bring the cigarette to his lips; he inhales and smiles under his cap. His counterpart shows no reaction.

2000 short by Dietmar Brehm

"With Praxis-1 I began an extensive video series, conceived in a structure of successively numbered scenes, which is parallel to all my other film/video works and paintings. Each part of the Praxis-series is approximately 20 minutes long. Both purely video works and also transformed reflections on a few of my 16mm films are shown after having been put in a new light by means of electronic transformations of the picture." (Dietmar Brehm)

"Sometimes I ask myself what KIND of films I make + and I think they are horror films. Do I make horror films?"

"Sometimes I ask myself what KIND of films I make + and I think they are horror films. Do I make horror films?"

Faces and body parts inverted to the negative, zoomed in on, with their motion slowed, so that they are transformed into slowly moving surfaces in shades of gray; facial expressions are intensified by lingering, contours blend into the indefinite surroundings, the precise rhythm is highlighted by echoing sound.

Faces and body parts inverted to the negative, zoomed in on, with their motion slowed, so that they are transformed into slowly moving surfaces in shades of gray; facial expressions are intensified by lingering, contours blend into the indefinite surroundings, the precise rhythm is highlighted by echoing sound.

Compilation of digitalized images from the filmmakers's own earlier 8mm work.

Compilation of digitalized images from the filmmakers's own earlier 8mm work.

2004 short by Dietmar Brehm

Who loves the sun? Found Footage of a "Neckermann East Africa" film.

Sometimes the camera films of its own volition. Macumba shows an optical tangle in 13 scenes. As a start signal one hears a double hammer blow arising from a black screen, a sound like the nailing shut of a coffin. Macumba develops slowly out of the black. A black porno couple on the telephone in London. Then they meet on a snake in a park and are, together with Kalahari Bushmen mixed to a film matrix which is as incomprehensible as real life.

Condensed material from Dietmar Brehm’s cumulative work Praxis-Selektion – once in black and- white and once in green-red, with electric guitar. In INSIDE Brehm denaturalizes his video recordings and develops new dramaturgies of image and sound. Flickering effects, blurs, and positive-negative inversions yield a texture of mysterious associations whose Pop art aesthetic resembles print techniques and comics.

2008 short by Dietmar Brehm

Halcion is the title of the most recent work from Austria´s most productive film studio - that of Dietmar Brehm. The film is hereby named after a sleeping pill which Brehm explained in a letter "induces pastel colored dreams and watery images". Its appearance leaves little doubt that a key to the film lies in its title: we are given to see the vision of a dream that has coagulated to film.

At the end of 1996 in an old shop in Vienna specialising in film materials I found a tin with indeterminable pieces of 16mm film showing much wear and tear. They dated from the late 60s. After a cursory glance I thought 'yes'. The found footage material was ideal for the horror series. Corridor is the 5th film in the horror series "Black Garden‘ along with The Murder Mystery (1987/92), Blicklust (1992), Party (1995), Macumba (1995/96).

An early film by Dietmar Brehm.

2004 short by Dietmar Brehm

A superlatively crafted film which uses the psychology of sight deprivation to keep the viewer in suspense: you are allowed only the merest glimpses of what is really going on. The cumulative effect as a mental picture starts to grow, is at once titillating and disturbing.

The matrix of the Mix series is conceived with the express intention of facilitating the collection of various short films, whatever their nature. (Dietmar Brehm)