Work In Progress:  FOUR PIECES FOR SUPER EIGHT 

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Watch Online:

"In This Here - and some other Heres"

  "Looking For Something" Part 3

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Part 4

of the "Looking For Something"

Four Seasons Quartet

is being put together in the edit.

... Autumn ... 

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"Spring" following in due course.

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Available on 2 DVDs: 

Nächsten Sommer

(Next Summer)

bonus title to the feature film

SUGAR ORANGE

by Andreas Struck

&

bonus title to the short film compilation

LIEB MICH - gay shorts volume 4

released by Pro-Fun Media

WATCH online: 

Looking For Something

Part One

A Winter Visit

Germany 2012, 12:30 min.

Super8 to DigiBeta, b/w

English Voice-Over

Muisc: Cannon / Von Rabenau

Production, Direction, Camera, Montage: Fjodor Donderer

About the Film:

I met a friend at the railway station: after nightmarish visions of the end of the world in his sleep, and after heavy snowfall during the night,

he had embarked on a journey to a small town somewhere unknown, a winter visit, with the intention of looking for something in this world,
whatever it may be, for consolation, for inspiration, at the sight of the disastrous state this same world is currently in.
The film is the record of what he found on this trip into the unforeseen, taking a train, walking through the snow and holding a Super 8 camera.
In its narration, it reflects and comments on whatever my friend picked up on his way, with a sceptical but debonair attitude towards the people he met
and towards the world with all its contradictions. 

“Looking For Something” is a kaleidoscope of images, thoughts and ideas displayed on the timeline of his journey and this film.
Watching it can be like an encounter with someone, and you might realize, the film itself is waiting to make friends, too.

It comes in grainy black and white, shot on Super 8 and is intentionally kept in a low-tech style, quasi all handcrafted.

In this sense it wants to be a statement for simplicity in an over-refined world, that destroys its natural ressources.

“A Winter Visit“ is an impressionistic travelogue and is the first part in a Four Seasons series of visits to the world.

The night had brought a cover of snow to the world, the landscapes, the villages and cities.

I wanted to get up and make my way into the world, taking a train, looking for something.

      “Ah, yes, with this camera”, he said and continued to describe his impressions, while we were standing at this busy corner amidst the people rushing by.

      I stood by a corner, looking, yet not watching. Time forgotten. A knowing smile on a lady’s face woke me up.

It was only a quick glance, I saw a half open window on the second floor, a piano lesson, a girl.

A petrol station at the crossing of the two country roads, heavily frequented by long haul lorries, all too loud for this silent winter day. 

      Like all the other cars crowding the streets, their presence never planned, and their otherness never imagined, when this town was built.

      Then I had a rest, a café, and a piece of the local cheesecake. My boots under the table in a puddle.

After that I somehow got lost. Ending up in a park, redesigned by a commission.

      And I was passing by, like a meteorite, and for a moment I felt free, independent of the world’s contradictions.

FESTIVAL SELECTIONS:

Oct. 2013 - Antimatter, Victoria BC, Canada

May 2013 - 10th Black&White Audiovisual Festival, Porto, Portugal

Apr. 2013 - Ljubljana International Short Film Festival, Slovenia

Mar. 2013 - Festival du Cinéma Européen, Lille, France

Feb. 2013 - Flicker: Artists and Super 8 - Smiths Row Gallery, Bury St. Edmunds, England 

The film can now we watched online at http://vimeo.com/33857154

Super8 to DigiBeta, 16:30 mins. b/w, English title plates, Germany / Belgium / UK  2009

Music by Cannon / von Rabenau
Filmed, Recorded, Edited and Directed by Fjodor Donderer

Postproduktion: 5r Film / Christian Bäucker - http://www.5rfilm.com

About the Film:

Flat lands, windmills against the sunset.

A valley, a slow ride along the bends of the river.

People on platforms, waiting or waving.

School-classes on a trip to the city, tourists staring up the height of the cathedral.

Chairs in an antique shop, statues overlooking the squares and parks, leaves floating in the wind.

It is November, on a route Berlin – Köln – Bruxelles – London.

Images appear, thoughts, feelings, one thing follows another.

The spectator shares the passion for travelling and lingering.

Time and again the voyager interrupts the journey, roaming around the cities, discovering slowness.

„Journey On A Train“ is an im-pro-visation, a rendez-vous with the un-for-seen.

A spontaneous, handheld camera, grainy black-and-white, occasional laconic comments,

and an atmospheric score give the film its style and identity.

Über den Film:

Tiefland, Windräder im Morgenlicht. Täler, auf einer langsamen, kurvigen Fahrt entlang eines Flusses.

Menschen auf Bahnsteigen warten, winken.

Schulklassen auf einer Fahrt in die Stadt, Touristen im Blick gefangen bis zur unerreichbaren Domspitze.

Stühle in einem Polstergeschäft, Statuen überblicken einen Platz, einen Park.

Blätter schweben im Wind.

Es ist November, auf der Strecke Berlin – Köln – Brüssel – London.

Bilder tauchen auf, Gedanken, Gefühle, eins folgt aufs Andere.

Der Zuschauer teilt die Passion fürs Reisen und Verweilen.

Immer wieder unterbricht der Reisende die Fahrt, flaniert durch die Stadt, entdeckt die Langsamkeit.

"Journey On A Train" ist eine Im-pro-visation, eine Begegnung mit dem Un-vorher-gesehen.

Eine spontane Handkamera spürt dem Besonderen im Alltäglichen nach.

In körnigem Schwarz/Weiß, begleitet von einer atmosphärischen Musik und knappen, lakonischen Kommentaren.

 




Festivals:

August 2012: Meine Kultur 2012 - Steinach / Thüringen

April 2011: Helsinki Short Cuts Festival / Finland

November 2010:  L'Alternativa - Barcelona / Spain

May 2010:  Mediawave Festival - Szombathely / Hungary

April 2010:  Cambridge Super 8 Festival / UK

January 2010:  23. Stuttgarter Filmwinter / Germany

September 2009:  Berwick Media Arts Festival / UK 

 "The Fine Snow Covers All"

16mm, 8 mins., Germany / Russia  2006
Filmed, Edited and Directed by Fjodor Donderer

Über den Film:

Wie durch den Vorhang der Erinnerung erlebt man in melancholischen blauen Bildern und ohne Worte

die Begegnung, Annäherung, das Zusammensein, das Auseinandergehen von zwei jungen Männern.

Eine unverortete und zeitlose Kurzgeschichte.

About the film: 

Just like through a curtain of rememberance, in blue, melancholy pictures, 

 one witnesses two young men meeting, getting closer, being together and going seperate ways again.

A short story beyond definite time or place.

 "Unrest"

Super 16mm to 35mm, 17 mins., Germany 1998

 In den Rollen / Cast: Felix zu Knyphausen, Valeska Hanel, Patricia Caspari, Alexander May

Kamera / Photography: Gerd Breiter

Music: F.A. Kummer „Duo für 2 Violoncelli Opus 22, Nr.2“

Solisten / Performed by: Antje Käsler und Sören Henning

Drehbuch / Script: Fjodor Donderer

Regie / Director: Fjodor Donderer

Gefördert durch / Funded by Kultusministerium Sachsen-Anhalt 

Über den Film:

Heinrich, Ludwig, Elisabeth und Hannah sind sich in Freundschaft zugetan.

Der Sommer in Wörlitz neigt sich dem Ende zu und sie spazieren noch einmal durch den Park.

Kein Weg, keine Wiese, keine Brücke, die ihnen nicht vertraut wäre, an der nicht schon eine gemeinsame Erinnerung hinge.

Viele Nachmittage verbrachten die vier jungen Bürgerlichen hier zusammen, tauschten Neuigkeiten aus, berieten sich, neckten einander, verstritten sich, um sich gleich wieder zu versöhnen.

Mit den ersten Herbstwolken zieht auch die Ahnung auf, daß auch diese Zeit zu Ende gehen wird.

Ein kurzer Film über Freundschaft. Sturm und Drang. 1798.

About the film:

Heinrich, Ludwig, Elisabeth and Hannah are bound up with each other quite affectionately.

Summer in Wörlitz is coming to an end and they walk through the park once again.

No path, no lawn, no bridge, which they are not aquainted with, which they would not share as a memory.

Many afternoons, the four young bourgeois spent here together, exchanging news, discussing, teasing each other, only for soon again making up with each other.

As the first autum clouds drift in, the end of this era dawns on the horizon.

A short film about friendship. Sturm and Drang. 1798. 

Festivals:

Filmfest Lisboa, Portugal 1999