Channel: Impakt 2009 Favourites

You and Me

A woman is walking towards her husband's camera through four decades. A love story accompanied by the voice of another woman, reading a poem by E.E. Cummings. Touching, easy and poetic.

Interview with Karsten Krause

Description/ summary of the work, thoughts on the work:

After several screenings of my film YOU AND ME I realized bit by bit that private footage is often undestood by people as the “real documentation” of life. Even if emotionality is reinforced by music and sounds, people cannot let go of their irrepressible picture of reality in private footage. Although it is as any kind of filming a production of reality, in the case of private footage, it is for most the perfect production of family.

Could you please tell us something about yourself and your artistic background.

The films I made range between classical direct cinema and experimental documentaries such as found footage films.

Tell us something about the initial idea and the work process.

I got the initial idea of my film YOU AND ME through the mass of material my grandfather shot on N8 and S8 between 1953 and 1989. Private footage, with exceptions of course, have almost always the same motives: Vacation, children, celebrations, family. My aim was to find an essential motive, which runs through the whole material from the 50s till 80s. I got to the idea, that there has to be a picture of my grandmother of every year, where she is walking towards his camera, which could be the perfect visualisation of love in a relationship.

How did you make your choices concerning cutting, music etc?

Through editing, through the music and the poem by E.E. Cummings I tried to force the impression, that found footage is in the same way a production of an exsisting reality, as every other cinematic reality.

Looking back – would you have done something different if known before?

There are thousand things you would like to do different. But we didnt.

On what new project are you working at the moment?

Together with Philip Widmann I just finished a short documentary with the English title THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S WIFE. Also here we worked alot with found footage.

Karsten Krause, January 27, 2011