Welcome address and introduction to headline theme: (Un)Happy Love – A Tangled Web of Happiness. Narrative in Literature and Film
Walter Grond, Artistic Director of Literaturhaus Europa
09:00 | Schloss zu Spitz
Can love stories be simply told? What lies behind the ambivalent phrase ‘tell us a story’? Every culture needs storytelling to find direction, to develop and not to implode. Film, like literature, has long been a source of such fables, which makes literature and film so fascinating. Both genres show that there are no definite truths; yet, they show a way forward because they approximate reality. An idea of truth lies behind the metamorphoses and artifices of literature and film and their play on facts and fictions.
To trace the magic of literature and film, the European Literature Days 2018 invite participants to contemplate the differences between narrative approaches in literature and film. What techniques are used by these genres to control our emotions? Peter Weiss summarized the difference between image and language: visual images reveal pain and language explains its underlying causes. Is this summary true? Is his idea of writing as a process of doubt and contradiction also a suitable description for these genres?
How do stories, novels and films affect us emotionally? What is the difference between a text narrative and one based on moving images? Which narrative techniques are used in literature and film? What makes literary texts inspire a film adaptation? How do films influence writing? Where are the transitions between the usually collective film productions and the highly individual process of writing?
A Tangled Web of Happiness
Writers/Filmmakers: Katharina Hacker, Răzvan Rădulescu
Moderator: Rosie Goldsmith
09:15 | Schloss zu Spitz
Free admission, booking required
At first glance, Katharina Hacker and Răzvan Rădulescu could not have more distinctive styles. While Rădulescu waxes lyrical about the simplicity of narrative in film, Hacker emphasizes her admiration for complex narrative spaces within the novel that give thoughts and feelings the opportunity to move in different directions. Do literature and film demand a fundamentally different approach?
In the film adaptation of Katharina Hacker’s novel, The Have-Nots, the plot is about love and violence, about private grief and the shock that gripped Western societies in 2001 after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The film Tuesday After Christmas – the screenplay was co-authored by Răzvan Rădulescu with Alexandru Baciu and director Radu Muntean – is about love and responsibility. At the centre of the film is the contemplation of solitude and loneliness.
Katharina Hacker’s text was exclusively compiled for the European Literature Days and will be published in the run-up to the festival on the website.
In cooperation with Kino im Kesselhaus Kems and Drehbuch Forum Wien.
Where is Real-Life? Where is the Novel?
Writers/Filmmakers: Tim Krohn, André Schreuders
Moderator: Carl Henrik Fredriksson
11:00 | Schloss zu Spitz
Free admission, booking required
The conversation between the writer Tim Krohn and the filmmaker Andre Schreuders revolves around the energies and secrets that are released while narrating a story. How do literature and film behave in relation to each other?
In 2015, Tim Krohn launched one of the most intriguing literature projects in recent years. He set up the Menschliche Regungen crowdfunding project where backers can choose from 1,000 feelings and moods and even write a story about it – the material is then included in a novel by Tim Krohn. Three volumes have been published so far. An encyclopaedia of human emotions is under composition.
Andre Schreuders traces the relationship of literature and film. His film Along Chapel Road explores the locations of an important novel in Flemish literature – i.e. Louis Paul Boon’s Chapel Road. The focus is on the novelist’s desire to record in the novel all aspects of life and the filmmaker’s aim to rediscover in real locations the things that he first found in the novel.
Both projects are about the thirst for reading and joy of discovery. The Q&A discussion centres on our expectations of literature and film.
In cooperation with Kino im Kesselhaus Kems and Drehbuch Forum Wien.
Romantic Locations
Filmmakers: ldikó Enyedi, Jasmila Žbanić
Moderator: Carl Henrik Fredriksson
15:00 | Kino im Kesselhaus
Free admission, booking required
The most recent films by Ildikó Enyedi and Jasmila Žbanić are about romantic relationships. On Body and Soul or Love Island are romantic films that couldn’t be more different. And yet, they also have something in common. The film locations play a central role for the evolution of the story.
In Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul, an introvert financial director of an abattoir and a female quality inspector, who appears to be autistic, both notice that they have the same dreams at night. They tentatively move closer. The story concentrates on a love affair where language is not enough to convey feelings that only reach the other through images.
Love Island is an apparently light-footed love story. Jasmila Žbanić developed the plot with the Bosnian-Canadian writer Aleksandar Hemon. A married couple spends a relaxing holiday on the Croatian Adriatic coast until a young seductress arrives. An unusual relationship intrigue runs its course.
Romantic locations – what do they mean in literature and film? Are they merely a backdrop for a story? Do they produce local interest and represent the world realistically? Or do they imply a transition to inner worlds?
In cooperation with Kino im Kesselhaus Kems and Drehbuch Forum Wien.
(Un)Happy Love
Writers/Filmmakers: Olivia Hetreed, Kathrin Resetarits
Moderator: Rosie Goldsmith
16:30 | Kino im Kesselhaus
Free admission, booking admission
In her books about emotional life during the age of capitalism, the sociologist Eva Illouz describes the connection between money, sex and love as well as the consumption of romantic stories. In this case, films make a substantial contribution to the behaviour of lovers and their beloved. Olivia Hetreed and Kathrin Resetarits, two screenwriters who pay great attention to literature, talk about the (un) requited love affairs in films as well as in real life.
British director Andrea Arnold’s film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights exposed, according to The New York Times, the raw heart of a classic novel, which was surrounded by a natural and mystic aura of the many previous film adaptations. Olivia Hetreed wrote the screenplay of this eye-catching new film version about love, greed and revenge.
Variety magazine called the film Licht by Barbara Albert a sensual, emotional historic drama. Kathrin Resetarits wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Alissa Walser. The focus is on the repression and dependence of a young woman and her longing to reach beyond herself. At the forefront are issues of love, surrender and freedom.
In cooperation with Kino im Kesselhaus Kems and Drehbuch Forum Wien.
Literary-Musical Soirée
Writer: Vea Kaiser
Musicians: Sain Mus – Clemens Sainitzer/cello and Philipp Erasmus/guitar
20:00 | Schloss zu Spitz
Tickets EUR 16,-/14,-
Vea Kaiser’s texts meet the music of Sain Mus with the promise of an enthralling text and tonal universe.
Musicians Philipp Erasmus’ and Clemens Sainitzer’s style is a combination of melodic phrases and experimental sounds. The distinctive duo of guitar and cello harmonizes with passages from Vea Kaiser’s published books and excerpts from her forthcoming new novel in January 2019. Myths and modernist style merge in a comic and epic experience.
