FILM AUF FILM event series is entering its second year and excited to welcome Jürgen Reble as first guest on Sunday, March 9th in Filmhaus Cinema Cologne.

"Film like the representation of material reality will never be fixed or settled and determined once and for all." Jürgen Reble wrote this in the Fall 1997 issue of the Millennium Film Journal. The dissolution of the concrete into the ambiguous, the distant, and the abstract has accompanied the filmmaker since his time as a member of the three-person film collective Schmelzdahin (1979–1989). Reble is known as a film alchemist, as his deliberate manipulation of chemical and biological processes results in a storm of nonlinear images focused on abstraction, form, and color.

Born in Düsseldorf in 1956, he initially pursued studies in physics and chemistry before following an artistic path. His performances and films have been presented at international film festivals and screened at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Auditorium of the Louvre (Paris).

At 3:00 PM, a two-hour experimental 16mm workshop, "Scratching, Tinting, and Developing" will offer a hands-on approach to these themes. This engaging workshop is designed as an introductory session for both beginners and advanced participants and is free of charge. No registation is nessessary. Participants are welcome to bring their own materials, such as exposed and unexposed film stock, fabrics, and textures for photograms, stencils, and more.

In the evening, at 7:30 PM, a film program (16mm and digital projection) will take place at Filmhaus, tickets are available here (9€ regular, 5€ for students). The two-and-a-half-hour film program will include the short films Stadt in Flammen (1984, 5 min) and Chicago (1996, 12 min), as well as the feature-length film Materia Obscura (2009, 105 min), spanning over forty years of Reble’s cinematic work. This event will also provide an opportunity to discuss his artistic development and the biochemical processes behind his works.