Lutz Mommartz
Directing
Biography
For over five decades, experimental filmmaker Lutz Mommartz shaped the German film and art scene with a radically different understanding of film. Since the 1960s, he was active in Düsseldorf as a filmmaker and artist, and his work raised key questions about the authenticity of film and its relationship with the audience. He achieved his international breakthrough in 1967 at the Knokke Festival, when his film "Self-Shots" won an award. Parallel to his work as a municipal official, he was a motivator in the Düsseldorf art scene, for example, as co-founder of the legendary artists' bar Creamcheese, and was represented in numerous exhibitions such as documenta 4 (with his "Zweileinwandkino" (two-screen cinema) in 1968) and STRATEGY: GET ARTS (Edinburgh, 1970). He received the Silver Federal Film Prize in 1977 for "As if by Beckett" and in 1978 for "The Garden of Eden" Mommartz stood for "the other cinema," beyond the mainstream, with the goal of establishing film as a means of artistic expression. In the 1970s, as part of the Düsseldorf Film Group, he campaigned for the institutional recognition of film in art. In 1975, he was appointed the first professor of film at the University of Fine Arts Münster (then an outpost of the Düsseldorf Art Academy) and headed the film class until 1999. In 2020, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf dedicated a retrospective to Mommartz's work. His works were most recently exhibited at the ZKM Karlsruhe and the Julia Stoschek Foundation. Lutz Mommartz is remembered as a pioneer of artistic film—uncomfortable, experimental, and ahead of his time.
Known For
Featuring Wolfgang Domke. Transfixed at a table, a man drinks a lot of alcohol, eats a lot of beets and cream cakes in order to make himself vomit. During this hour long process he becomes disillusioned and talks about his concept of the future.
Overwhelmed
"Social Sculpture" was filmed in 1969 subsequently after the filming of "400 m IFF". IFF is the name of the available film material, that was already expired, from which approximately 400 m were used for "400 m IFF" and the rest for "Social Sculpture". In "400 m IFF" three men appear in front of the filming camera in the apartment of the author. With Joseph Beuys this situation had been appointed, the other two visitors came by chance before him and played instinctively. "They all noticed the exceptional situation, but could not count on the sovereignty to carry out their point. And even during the operations on the screen, the viewer becomes a participant who cannot avoid the question of how he would have behaved in the same situation."
Social Sculpture
Lutz and Fred mess around in a profound way about what they are doing: Movies and Photos.
Slow Waltz
A woman looks on incessantly at the spectator in a demonstration of love.
Way to the Neighbour
With Jörn Janssen, Ulrich Wiethoff and Norbert Stratmann in a conference without words. 3 men meet wordlessly and start turning their fingers at the edges of wine glasses until the sound becomes independent.
3 Glasses
The film is a late payoff with a Genius, who took his job more important as the politics that led to total destruction.
Marble Always Remains Cool
On a search for a couple for a love story with sex beyond the 70 Herbert Götzinger sent me to his colleagues sculptor Ludwig Chateau. During my surprise visit with the running camera, asking if he would be willing to do his part, he attacked me: "Is not that enough what they're doing at this moment?" –LM
Old Age Porn
The people before the camera expose themself to the question: What do I have to tell the audience.
Every Human is A Table, Only I Am A Chair
The author uses the camera as the eye, moves so one-handed through home and welcomes after peeing with his free hand, people at a party.
The Stairs
1966 Otto Pienes studio celebration recorded by Lutz Mommartz with his N8 MOVIKON 16 Bsec in Düsseldorf/Germany on the Hüttenstrasse.
Otto Piene's Studio Party
The author and his partners. Multiple relationship as a way of life.
Wing Flapping
To dress, to measure, to zoom.
Dress
In this short, a camera pointed towards a window films the landscape as a train moves along the track.
Railroad
No description available.
The Garden of Eden
In Düsseldorf-based filmmaker Lutz Mommartz’s Das Atem des Schafes (The Breath of the Sheep, 1970) we see Scotland as an outsider. Recorded on a trip to the Highlands ahead of his participation in Strategy: Get Arts – a landmark exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art – Mommartz’s 8mm film testifies to the Scottish imaginary that preceded self-representation. Mist-wrapped mountains and a maggot-infested sheep carcass are soundtracked by stretched-out psychedelia, encoding this as a place of wildness." - Marcus Jack 8mm - b/w
The Breath of Sheep
The communist party UZ celebrates on the meadows of the Rhine one of the biggest folk festivals that Düsseldorf, Germany, has ever experienced.
The Fear at the Rhein
Experimental film with a rock music soundtrack.
Up / Down
A married couple is having a caustic argument in front of a camera.
As if by Beckett
Sunset, crickets, zoom on a mansion in the night, a door slam.
Spanish Crime Story
Shadows on a wall