The Beauty of My Island – Shooting Klaus Lutz
directed by Frank Matter, documentary, 33 min., Switzerland/USA 1999
In August 1999, Klaus Lutz agreed to collaborate with filmmaker Frank Matter on a documentary about his work. For ten days, they locked themselves up in Lutz’s apartment in New York’s East Village.
While the artist shot a short movie titled «The Beauty of My Island», Matter documented every single step of the working process on video tape. Simultaneously director, camera operator, actor, set and costume designer, Lutz is shooting his films in various sets that he builds in his tiny apartment. His film language and the complex technological means he uses to tell his stories are the result of a life-long, meticulous investigation. Lutz is working with double and triple exposures, a wide variety of distorting and spheric lenses, balloons, pneumatic devices, rear projection, and turntables.
Klaus Lutz is a unique filmmaker, creates a visual universe completely his own. The protagonist flies over big, imaginary cities, walks through dark spaces, and interacts with props, signs and anthropomorphic drawnings.
«The Beauty of My Island – Shooting Klaus Lutz» is not a conventional the making of documentary, but a silent examination of an artist’s unique working process, a playful, charming, and in its own way often funny reflection on illusion and perception, movement and speed, light and darkness, shape and color, film and video.
Festivals, Museum Screenings & Awards
- Montreal Festival of Films on Art, Canada (Best Educational Essay)
- Conduit Digital Festival, Austin, TX, USA
- Dumbo Arts Festival, New York, USA
- Traffic Art Festival, Chicoutimi, Canada
- Journées culturelles du Mont St. Jacob, Canada
- McDonnell Media Library, New York, USA
- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montreal, Canada
- Arco, Madrid, Spain
- XCENTRIC Cinema, Centre de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona, Spain
- Kunsthalle/Stadtkino, Basel, Switzerland
- Helmhaus, Zürich, Switzerland
- The Kitchen, New York, USA
- Exile, Berlin, Germany
- Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland
- Cine Estudio - Círculo de Bellas Arte, Madrid, Spain
- Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany
- Ausstellungshalle zeitgenössische Kunst, Münster, Germany
- Salon Précaire, Frauenfeld, Switzerland
- Videoex, Internationales Experimentalfilm & Video Festival, Zurich & Basel, Switzerland
- Bildrausch Filmfest, Basel, Switzerland
- Les Ateliers De Rennes, Frac Bretagne, Rennes, France
- beta Space Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
- Contemporary Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia
- Zeughaus Teufen, Teufen, Switzerland
- Ausstellungsraum Hermann Haller, Zurich, Switzerland
- British Film Institute Southbank, London, Great Britain
- Pavilion, Leeds, Great Britain
- Tyneside Cinema (Gallery), Newcastle upon Tyne, Great Britain
- Oporto, Lisbon, Portugal
- Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Credits
-
Production:
soap factory GmbH Basel -
Camera, Editing, Music:
Frank Matter -
Technical Consultant:
Nicola Bellucci -
Performance:
Klaus Lutz -
Produced with the support of the
Kuratorium of the Canton of Argovia
and Helmhaus Zurich