The only good films are those that destroy order and convention.
Vlado Kristl
A founding member of the EXAT '51 art group in Zagreb in 1950s, Vlado Kristl (1923鈥2004) went on to produce a remarkable range of work from pioneering animations and experimental films to poetry, performances and painting. Following the banning of his early film The General in 1962, Kristl left Croatia and relocated to Germany where he created an incomparable body of work in the context of post-war European cinema. His work has a central position in the avant-garde scene in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, as well as the emergent radical political cinema in Germany in the 1960s influencing participants in the Oberhausen manifesto and the New German Cinema of the 1960s and 70s.
The most extensive presentation of his films in the UK to date includes works made in Zagreb including his iconoclastic Cervantes adaptation Don Quixote 1961, early films awarded at the Oberhausen film festival such as the joyous Madeleine, Madeleine 1963 and his last video work Weltkongress der Obdachlosen / Conference of the Homeless completed in 2003. We鈥檒l also present a range of his radical features films that have been subtitled in English for the first time from his debut film Der Damm / The Dam 1966 to his monumental Tod Dem Zuschauer / Death to the Audience 1982.
Curated by George Clark.
Organised in collaboration with Maren Hobein, Goethe-Institut London.聽
Vlado Kristl: Death to the Audience is realised with additional support from the Goethe-Institut London and in collaboration with the Munich Film Museum.聽