Samir

Videoladen and Dschoint Ventschr
Zurich

Born 1955 in Baghdad. Lives and works in Zurich. Film author and co-owner of Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG.

00:00 Start. 00:14: Iraqi meets Swiss girl. 01:22: Privileged yet persecuted. 02:31: In Dübendorf, a workers‘ suburb of Zurich. 03:17: Immersed in the world of books and TV. 04:47: Vietnam – a decisive experience with a teacher. 06:22: My apprenticeship as a typographer and my growing interest in film. 07:26: Just film it. 08:12: Filming from scratch: best boy at Condor Film. 08:38 The activists from the collective “Videoladen”. 10:49: My first video camera and ‘200 Motels’. 12:08: Bread-and-butter jobs and my start at the “Videoladen” – My commitment to auteur video. 13:17: A collective video adventure: Morlove – an Ode for Heisenberg. 16:19: The decade of radical change. 18:01: Video at its peak. 19:13: DSCHOINT VENTSCHR Filmproduction: We sell ideas. 20:02: My wish for Secondos. 22:02: Credits
Commentary

Morlove

Dschoint ventschr
Zurich

1987, 70 mins, produced by Dschoint Ventschr, U-matic, color, German and English version, 9 mins (excerpts, english),  and available on DVD from Dschoint Ventschr. Original preserved (but not online) in the video collection Stadt in Bewegung (Swiss Social Archive and Memoriav).

In this video comic, the hero—inspired by Freud, Marx, and Bogart—is being cast away from Zurich over Casablanca, Portofino, and Moscow to the top of Rigi: arms trades, KGB, and mountain fever plague him, but his investigative sense for the supernatural makes him dance over the abyss and finally fall for the beguiling scent of his client.

Dialogue between two billiard balls, one is Heisenberg (H), the other one Einstein (E), in the bar “La règle du jeu” (anywhere)
H    It is how it is, dearest Einstein, the energy of a subatomic particle at a given point in time cannot be defined, just as the exact time at which a particle reaches a certain energy cannot be measured.
E    Dear Heisenberg, while I do understand the uncertainty principle, please consider the consequences: What becomes of a world in which causes don’t have any obvious effects anymore? All these “uncertainties” and “probabilities”??? I mean, you are not aware of your responsibility towards society.
H    But dear Einstein, the NEW THINKING is on the rise: in literature, in film, erratic associations everywhere, settings suddenly change, heroes stumble upon bodies …
E    Nonsense, that’s why you are so popular with the NEW AGE (movement)!
H    Huh??
E    Yes, yes, with these “voodoo” evangelists that are suddenly popping up everywhere.
H    Wuuduu what? Dearest Einstein, you know that I have no interest in politics …
E    That’s precisely what I mean, running to your own demise with your eyes closed …

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