10 · 12 · 17 Fred Kelemen, 15th FICM’s Special Guest Share with twitter Share with facebook Share with mail Copy to clipboard The German film and theater director, cinematographer and writer Fred Kelemen will attend to the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) as a Special Guest. Born in the western part of Berlin, when Germany was divided by a wall, Kelemen studied painting, music, philosophy, religious science, and drama studies and worked in various theatres as a director’s assistant before beginning his studies in directing and cinematography at the German Film & TV Academy Berlin (dffb), in 1989. For his diploma film, Fate (1994), he received the German National Film Award in 1995. Since then, he has made a number of films and videos as director and collaborated as cinematographer with several film directors like Joseph Pitchhadze (Sweets, 2013), Béla Tarr (Journey to the Plain, 1995; The Man from London, 2007; The Turin Horse, 2011), Rudolf Thome (The Visible and the Invisible, 2006), Gariné Torossian (Stone, Time, Touch, 2005), and others. Since 1995, he has worked as an associate professor and has given master classes and lectures at various institutions such as Centre of Cinematographic Studies of Catalonia (CECC) in Barcelona, Spain; College of Fine Arts (ESBAG) in Geneva, Switzerland; and Harvard University, USA. In Morelia, Kelemen will present his most recent film as director, Sarajevo Songs of Woe (2016), a filmic triptych comprising the two tales “Blue Ballad for Lovers” and “Blue Rondo for Survivors” and the documentary middle part “Blue Psalm for Wolves.” They flow into each other and thus build a universal mosaic of fragmented life situated in the city of Sarajevo. The camera follows different protagonists and interweaves them in a cinematic round dance of hope and despair, love and death, and their quest for a dignified life, which is fragilely stretched between the desire for the warmth of love and the coldness of our civilization’s reality. Sarajevo Songs of Woe, (2016). He will also accompany director Béla Tarr, who will receive the UNAM Film Archive Medal and present his film The Turin Horse (2011), of which Kelemen was the cinematographer.
