Hartmut Bitomsky

Shakkei. Geborgte Landschaften (2017)

Bitomskys new film was inspired by the Japanese shakkei, which stands for the "borrowing" of a landscape. Japanese gardens are often planned so that a found "natural" landscape is connected with designed elements. For his film Bitomsky rediscovers his own ...

Sparrows (2009)

A man and a woman meet in a bar. They walk through the night without any reason. At dawn they separate again. A long take. ...

Es geht um Alles (2008)

No overview found. ...

Dust (2007)

A look at the pervasive power of dust from its tiny particles settling in unseen places to its ability to cause illnesses and create the cosmos. ...

Half Hours (2007)

Melanie Straub lives aimlessly into the day, or more accurately: into a Saturday. She′s alone at home, surrounded by the emptiness of her new life. ...

B-52 (2001)

A detailed, historical documentary about the construction and capabilities of the United States military's B-52 bomber. ...

Workers Leaving the Factory (1995)

Using one of the Lumière Brothers' first films of workers leaving the Factory as his starting point, Farocki provides an insight to changes in industrial production, workers' strikes and motion pictures-- via images of workers leaving factories throughout ...

Playback (1995)

The film documents a debate about early 20th century films, mainly 1910 to 1920, from short news reels to excerpts from full-length movies. At Amsterdam's Film Museum, film directors, students, and film researchers and archivists look at the moving images ...

Imaginary Architecture, the architect Hans Scharoun (1995)

Hans Scharoun has built houses which show not only structural substance and aesthetic forms but also how human beings should live in buildings. This depiction can only be imaginary - like reading invisible writing on walls. Bitomsky's film looks at several ...

Die UFA (1992)

Die UFA, a film essay about the eponymous German studio. ...

Barrage and Bunker (1991)

Barrage and Bunker is an essay film about the (narrative) space imagined by fiction films. Reflections and associations about movement in space are the basis of every kind of story-telling. The film is sometimes referred to as part of Bitomsky's Cinema Tri ...

The Cinema and the Wind and Photography (1991)

How should one define the relationship of documentary film to reality? Does it aim at authenticity or is it rather an "exile of reality", a "foreign homeland of reality", where the pre-filmic, stripped of its immediacy, comes to its own right in the first ...

Isaak Babel - Die Reiterarmee (1990)

The VW Complex (1989)

It takes a day and a half to assemble a VW Golf 2. Hartmut Bitmosky traces a car's journey through the fully automated production lines in Wolfsburg and explores the development of the VW Group using archival footage. Moving almost in time with the machine ...

Cinema and Death (1988)

"Why does cinema need death, when it can't show it? ...

Reichsautobahn (1986)

While working on "Deutschlandbilder" (1983), Hartmut Bitomsky was examining film material produced by the Nazi regime when he came across an abundance of footage documenting the planning and construction of motorways. In this found footage documentary he i ...

Deutschlandbilder (1984)

This compilation film focuses on the contents of Nazi propaganda shorts such as "The Beauty of Work" (1934), "We Have No Problems" (1933), or "The Will To Live" (1944) that preceded the feature films in German movie theaters between 1933 and 1945. The shor ...

Highway 40 West (1981)

"Highway 40 West" (1980/81) is the first of a series of documentaries by Hartmut Bitomsky (born 1942 in Bremen) which brought him international fame. Each of these films is dedicated to both, a specific and title-giving object and its historical-critical a ...

Putting Things Straight (1979)

Caravan of Words (1977)

The two-part film by Hartmut Bitomsky is an "essay film with a plot." It revolves around the transportation of books that are meant to go from Munich to Cologne. It's about reading the right texts, deciphering secret messages, the violence that emanates fr ...

Der Schauplatz des Krieges. Das Kino von John Ford (1976)

Documentary about the films of John Ford. ...

Bent or Broken (1975)

A darkly comedic exploration of personal struggle and societal pressure, we follow the story of a middle-aged man named Max, who is trapped in a life of monotony and frustration. After a series of unexpected events, Max finds himself in increasingly absurd ...

Telekritik: Unter einem Himmel schwarz von Häusern von erloschenen Bränden schwarz (1975)

Einmal wirst auch du mich lieben. Über die Bedeutung von Heftromanen (1973)

Something Self Explanatory (15x) (1971)

An educational film about an aspect of political economy. The concepts of use value, barter value and labor as a commodity are the subjects; they are intended to introduce the process of understanding the theory of value of work and the law of values, alie ...

Die Teilung aller Tage (1970)

A worker is sitting at a conveyor belt on which light bulbs are coming in at regular intervals. He takes the light bulbs from the conveyor belt and inserts them into a testing device. The light bulbs light up briefly and bathe the scene in glistening light ...

Johnson & Co. and the Campaign Against Poverty (1968)

Clearly influenced by Brecht and Jean-Marie Straub, criticizes the reduction of human relations to economic relations as well as the US imperialism in Vietnam. ...

3000 Houses (1967)

"Six young people move through a city in order to establish the starting point of their joint action. But they can't agree on the topic. In the end everybody goes their own way and leaves the city. ...

Das Vöglein (1966)

Short thriller about an older woman and an escaped convict. ...

Weltmacht Staub. Hartmut Bitomsky über einen unbesiegbaren Zustand der Materie (2008)

Alexander Kluge and Hartmut Bitomsky discuss the film Staub (Dust). Dust is called "matter in the wrong place." In fact, dust is an irresistible state of dissolution at the beginning and end of all things and living things. ...

Four Corners (1997)

James Benning's "Four Corners" uses a specific geographical location to pose larger questions about the United States. Here, the geographic and wholly imaginary place Four Corners, that favorite tourist destination where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and ...

Barrage and Bunker (1991)

Barrage and Bunker is an essay film about the (narrative) space imagined by fiction films. Reflections and associations about movement in space are the basis of every kind of story-telling. The film is sometimes referred to as part of Bitomsky's Cinema Tri ...

Cinema and Death (1988)

"Why does cinema need death, when it can't show it? ...

Closed Circuit (1983)

IT specialist Victor Faber makes a living securing computers for large corporations and banks. His reclusive private life is upended when he falls in love with a strange woman named Juliet. Her friend convinces Faber to exploit his knowledge to rob a bank. ...

Before Your Eyes - Vietnam (1982)

An unconventional essay film that interrogates the visual and ideological legacy of the Vietnam War. Blending staged scenes, archival footage, photographs, and philosophical dialogue, the film follows various characters — including an American soldier ca ...

"Kino 81" - Stillness, a film magazine by film critics (1981)

An issue of the magazine Kino 81, designed for the film department of WDR by staff of FILMKRITIK ...

Es stirbt allerdings ein jeder, fragt sich nur wie und wie Du gelebt hast (Holger Meins) (1976)

A look into the life of Holger Meins, the German cinematography student who became a revolutionary and a prominent voice in the Vietnam War protest movement. This film is comprised of interviews with his associates. ...

Kampf um ein Kind (1975)

A West Berlin doctor, married with a two-year-old child, leaves her husband to go to Munich to work in the birth clinic of a hospital. Her husband doesn't know that she's pregnant with their second child. Will she have to choose between motherhood and her ...

Something Self Explanatory (15x) (1971)

An educational film about an aspect of political economy. The concepts of use value, barter value and labor as a commodity are the subjects; they are intended to introduce the process of understanding the theory of value of work and the law of values, alie ...

Zum Begriff des 'kritischen Kommunismus' bei Antonio Labriola (1843-1904) (1970)

Straschek's film points to the gap between workers and intellectuals and describes the "difficulties of the revolution" in a biting and witty way. ...

Wochenschau I: Requiem für eine Firma (1969)

A documentary about the events at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb) in November 1968, which led to the termination of the training contracts of 18 students. While Director Heinz Rathsack dictates to his secretary Helene Schwarz the lette ...

3000 Houses (1967)

"Six young people move through a city in order to establish the starting point of their joint action. But they can't agree on the topic. In the end everybody goes their own way and leaves the city. ...