Manifesto, a documentary by the German director Julian Rosenfeldt is a smart collage comprising thirteen scenes, all performed by Cate Blanchett. In each of the episodes, she reads texts of the twentieth century’s key art manifestos bearing different guises: a school teacher, a choreographer, a homeless person, or a news presenter.
Manifesto is a feature length film version of Julian Rosenfeldt’s multichannel video installation of the same name, where he brings together somewhat contradictory things—actor’s improvisation with written script, and an Academy Award winner with the works of avant-garde artists.
An exhibition opening and a funeral, a family dinner and a junkyard, a school class and a punk gig become locations for citing paradigmatic texts by Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton, Sol LeWitt, Jim Jarmusch, Lars von Trier, and other renowned artists, architects, dancers, and cinematographers who have expressed their vision of time, art and the world around in the genre of manifesto. The new conditions of reading these texts reveal the performative and political potential of this literary form, and raise questions regarding the changes that have happened in relations between politics, art, and life since they were written.
The world premiere of the Manifesto movie took place at the Sundance Festival in January 2017. In Russia, the film is shown for the first time, as part of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and Beat Film Festival’s joint program Films by Artists. On June 8, A-One and Russian World Vision distribution companies will release the film in Russian cinemas.
Manifesto
Director Julian Rosenfeldt
Australia, Germany, 2015. 95 minutes.
16+
