We are thrilled to welcome Helena Wittmann on Friday 3 February to present and discuss her festival hit HUMAN FLOWERS OF FLESH. Following the screening and talk, the film's composer and sound designer Nika Son will play a live set at our studio.

Portugal, Brazil, Germany, Serbia, Algeria, Greece: the crew of the boat “Don du Vent” come from all around the world. At one point, Ida, the only woman on board, gives the list of countries to a man who doesn’t so much come from some other place as from a different fictional world. His name is Galoup, he is played by Denis Lavant, and if there were not enough hints before, this is the moment when Helena Wittman explicitly reveals that she owes inspiration to BEAU TRAVAIL by Claire Denis, another enigmatic parable about postcolonial masculinity.
The expedition Ida leads across the Mediterranean sea to Africa and to the Legion Étrangere only provides the barest thread of a narration in HUMAN FLOWERS OF FLESH. In essence, this film is a stunningly photographed, almost abstract collection of layers of purely elemental experiences at sea, on the sea and in the sea – and a lucid attempt at discovering traces of history in a landscape that evokes ancient myth as much as cinephilia, modernity as much as its transcendence. (Bert Rebhandl)