Harun Farocki was born in 1944 in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, the son of an Indian migrant and a German mother. After World War II, he grew up in India and Indonesia, before studying at the German Film and Television Academy in West Berlin from 1966 to 1968. Harun made more than 90 films, the majority short experimental documentaries. He also exhibited more than 30 art installations at galleries worldwide. Harun passed away in July this year, at the age of 70. In Collaboration with the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan India. The Goethe-Institut is the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institution operational worldwide. We promote the study of German abroad and encourage international cultural exchange. We thus foster knowledge about Germany by providing information on its culture, society and politics.
Inextinguishable Fire (Nicht löschbares Feuer)
West Germany |Â 1969 | 25 min | B&W
Harun Farocki’s first movie after leaving film school combines didactics and political agitation with a sparse cinematic style. Farocki contrasts the voyeurism of Vietnam War reporting with a didactic arrangement: a model reconstruction of napalm manufacture is followed by a playful call to revolution.
Videograms of a Revolution (Videogramme einer Revolution)
Germany | 1992 | 106 min | Colour and B&W
For “Videogram of a Revolution” Harun Farocki and his co-author Andrej Ujica collected amateur video and material broadcast by Romanian state television after it was taken over by demonstrators in December 1989. The audio and video represent historic first ever revolution in which television played a major role. The film’s protagonist is contemporary history itself.
Workers Leaving the Factory (Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik)
Germany | 1995 | 36 min | Colour and B&W
Based on one of the Lumière brothers’ historic first films, Harun Farocki has created a montage of scenes from 100 years of film history, all variations on the theme of “workers leaving the factory”. Farocki uses the pictures to reflect on the iconography and economy of a workers’ society, as well as that of cinema itself, which tends to acquire its audience at the gates of the factory and hijack them into the private sphere.
