Hanna Schygulla: Quel que soit le songe / Whatever the Dream Is (a documentary viewed in the presence of Hanna Schygulla and Anne Imbert)

Générique (Festival International du Film de La Rochelle):
France • documentaire • 2012 • 1h 05 • couleur
Hanna Schygulla, quel que soit le songe
Réalisation, scénario: Anne Imbert
Image: Pukyo Ruiz de Somocurio
Musique: Jean-Claude Carrière, Jean-Marie Sénia
Montage: Samuel Fleury
Son: Christophe Lizot
Production: Fas Production, Ciné+, Cinaps TV
Source: Fas Production
    In French.
    Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä.
    A copy with English subtitles screened at the Hanna Schygulla morning discussion at the School, 15 June 2017.

La Rochelle: Résumé:

"Portrait-rencontre avec la grande comédienne allemande, Hanna Schygulla."

"Dans un climat d’intimité, où se succèdent des lieux évocateurs, Hanna Schygulla dévoile son univers, ses passions et révèle la nature et la puissance de ses échanges avec des cinéastes comme Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Marco Ferreri, Alexandre Sokourov, Andrzej Wajda, Ettore Scola ou Volker Schlöndorff. Le récit s’enrichit des échanges et témoignages de ses proches, comme Jean-Claude Carrière, Alicia Bustamante, Anselm Kiefer, Jean-Marie Sénia ou Fatih Akin. De Paris à Berlin, en répétitions au théâtre ou sur le tournage de ses propres courts métrages, cette vidéaste est dans une constante dynamique de travail."

"Accompagné d’extraits de ses films et d’archives personnelles, le documentaire aborde une personnalité passionnante qui nous livre, pudiquement, les secrets cachés derrière ses songes." (La Rochelle)

AA: Hanna Schygulla introduced her morning discussion with an hour long poetic documentary portrait directed by Anne Imbert.

It is a deeply felt personal story of Hanna Schygulla filmed in 2012 at a moment when she was moving back to Germany, to Berlin, having lived for twenty years in France. Schygulla states that she had had to flee since "the historical legacy of Germany was too heavy to carry". The film is mostly in French, but there are key poems by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Paul Celan in German.

The theme song of the film "Quel que soit le songe" has been written by Jean-Claude Carrière, a close friend with whom Schygulla had a long term relationship. The film is a meditation of art as coming to terms with dream and reality. "A place to represent me would be a bridge: a bridge between dream and reality". "Fire needs darkness".

Marco Ferreri became Schygulla's key director after Fassbinder, and Storia di Piera (1983) would be a key film. Other important directors and films discussed here include Aleksandr Sokurov (Faust), Margarethe von Trotta (Heller Wahn), Andrzej Wajda (Eine Liebe in Deutschland), Volker Schlöndorff (Die Fälschung), Ettore Scola (La Nuit de Varennes), Jean-Luc Godard (Passion), and Fatih Akin (Auf der anderen Seite).

We are introduced to Schygulla's long-term companion, the Cuban actress Alicia Bustamente. Other memorable encounters include ones with Veruschka and Anselm Kiefer.

It all started of course with Fassbinder. We hear how they met at the Action-Theater in 1967, the shy boy who was a rebel. The passion for Goethe and Kleist. The explosive energy that in 13 years produced 50 films, 12 plays, poems... "Hast du Feuer?" is German for "Do you have a light?" but literally it means "Do you have fire?"