Villa Aurora Events Archive

March 2014

Oscar®-Reception

March 1, 2014

Los Angeles

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The day before the Academy Awards®, German Films, the German Consulate General and Villa Aurora held their traditional reception for the German Oscar®-nominees at the Villa Aurora. This year’s nominees were Max Lang and Jan Lachauer in the category of Short Animated Film.

The long-awaited rain storms struck during Oscar week, and the sky was overcast, but it did not deter about 300 guests to attend the party, among them being Angelika Flatz of the Austrian Chancelery, Andreas Trauts (MFG Filmfoundation) and Manon Bursian (Arts Foundation Sachsen-Anhalt). Oscar®- winner Volker Engel (Independence Day), Haifaa al Mansour and Uschi Obermaier celebrated the nominees as well.

The representative of German Films Oliver Mahrdt, the Director of Villa Aurora Margit Kleinman, Head of the Board of Villa Aurora Markus Klimmer and its Executive Director Annette Rupp welcomed the guests and introduced the nominees.

The reception was supported by German Films, Villa Aurora, the German Consulate General in Los Angeles, the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, MFG Filmfoundation and the Arts Foundation of Sachsen-Anhalt.

The official sponsors were Sante Naturkosmetik, Air Berlin, Audi, Bosch, Engel & Völkers, VW, Volvic, Carpe Diem, Apolinaris and AMI.

To the Gallery

Meet our Fellows

March 6, 2014 7:30 pm

Villa Aurora (520 Paseo Miramar, Los Angeles, CA 90272)

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AXEL RANISCH

Axel Ranisch is a director, actor, producer and media educator. Born in Berlin-Lichtenberg in 1983 as the obese child of two professional athletes, he initially maintained a critical distance to the medium of film. This attitude did not change until 2002, when he -rather inadvertently -made his first short film. Axel has been making movies at record speed ever since, directing approximately 80 short films during the following seven years as well as working as an actor, writer, composer and editor on several more. In 2011, Axel cofounded the production company "Sehr gute Filme" (Very good films).

Ranisch's films are heart-warming, brimming with music and humor, often without a script and based on improvisation. Axel was awarded the 2013 MFG Star, the MFG Film Foundation's prestigious prize for young directors, which includes a three-month stay at Villa Aurora.

On March 6, Axel will show a compilation of his shorts, feature films and music videos and talk about his filmmaking philosophy.

STEFAN MAELCK

Writer Stefan Maelck was born in Wismar in 1963. After his military service in the East German Army, he studied English and German literature in Rostock. His thesis was based on texts by Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson. After completing his Ph.D. in American studies he was awarded a fellowship for Brown University in Rhode Island. In 1992/93 Maelck was a guest lecturer at Bradford University in England. Upon his return, he worked as an editor for Reclam Verlag for British and American literature as well as a free-lance author and host for MDR and NDR radio and press for pop culture and literature. Maelck's novels "Ost Highway - Ein Hank Meyer Roman" (2003), "Pop essen Mauer auf"(2006), "Tödliche Zugabe" (2007) were published by Rowohlt Verlag.On March 6, Stefan will talk about his third novel "Hymnen an die Stille" (Hymns to Silence) the title of a Van Morrison album from 1991 featuring private eye and radio dj Hank Meyer. The "road movie" takes place in Rostock, Heiligendamm. Los Angeles, San Francisco and back to his radio station in Halle.

DAVID SIEVEKING

Filmmaker David Sieveking was born in Friedberg in 1977. From 1997 to 1999 he worked as an assistant editor in several production houses in Frankfurt. He then studied directing at the Berlin Film and TV Academy (dffb) and worked as editor, assistant director and actor for film and TV. His graduation film "Senegallemand" premiered at the 2007 Munich International Film Festival. In 2010 his cinema debut "David Wants to Fly", opened at the Berlin Film Festival, toured to over 40 festivals and was internationally released in theaters. His documentary "Vergiss mein nicht" (Forget Me Not) was the winner of the Critics' Week at thHis documentary "Vergiss mein nicht" (Forget Me Not) was the winner of the Critics' Week at the 2012 Locarno film festival. His book of the same title that was published in January 2013 along with the film release in Germany and Switzerland.

David's statement for the March 6th event: Me, Myself and I: For about ten years I have been working on first-person documentaries. Based on clips from my films "David Wants to Fly" and "Forget Me Not" I would like to share some of my experiences in this field and talk about the possibilities, but also the limitations of working in this very personal way.

Watch the trailer of "David wants to fly".

Villa Aurora Salon featuring Felicitas Hoppe

March 27, 2014

Berlin

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"I no longer like your book", Felicitas Hoppe quoted a reviewer with a big smile. The reviewer had just learned that Felicitas had actually taken the container ship journey told in PIGAFETTA. But Felicitas Hoppe is very well aware of some reader’s wistful notion of the artist’s rich inner world. But an inner world, Hoppe replied to the reviewer at the time, always needs an external world. - An outside world the imagination can flourish on.

On the occasion of the first Villa Aurora Salon on March 27 Felicitas Hoppe read some of the wonderful results of her rich imagination. A group of selected guests joined the beautiful “Hoppean” world of "honest invention". Felicitas read, among others, from her Novel PIGAFETTA, from an essay on the places of her writing recently published in SPRACHE IM TECHNISCHEN ZEITALTER and from her Dr. Seuss translation GRÜNES EI MIT SPECK (GREEN EGGS AND HAM), whose German title she explained as follows: "Sam [the main character’s name] rhymes perfectly with ham, but very poorly with Schinken [German for Ham]."

Marianne Heuwagen, journalist and co-founder of Villa Aurora as a residence for artists, hosted this first Villa Aurora Salon with Felicitas Hoppe.

Women In Exile

March 29, 2014 4:00 pm

Villa Aurora (520 Paseo Miramar, Los Angeles, CA 90272)

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Discovering a Fascinating Author - The Life and Work of Susan Taubes

To engage with the works of Susan Taubes means to discover a fascinating author whose life reveals disruptions that are paradigmatic for many 20th-century Jewish intellectuals. Born in Budapest in 1928, she immigrated to the USA in 1939 with her father (the psychoanalyst Sándor Feldman). She studied in France, Israel, and in the USA, where she was part of the academic and artistic avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s.

It was not until her suicide in 1969 that she became known as an author with her novel Divorcing (1969), and only recently have her literary remains been made available in an edition initiated by Sigrid Weigel.

The correspondence with Jacob Taubes covers the years immediately following their marriage. During this time the philosophy student and the young philosopher of religion were separated geographically: Susan studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, while Jacob was teaching at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The letters vividly document how the twenty-four-year-old’s intellectual life was beginning to gain certain contours. They tell of her work on theological elements in Heidegger’s thought, her critical fascination with Simone Weil’s writings, and her occupation with Albert Camus’ existential philosophy. Moreover, the letters reveal theoretical and personal points of contention between the married couple. Many of these debates revolved around their different relationships towards Judaism and clashing views on the combination of religion and politics; the newly established State of Israel then served as the stage upon which these tensions played out.

Introduction by Sigrid Weigel: Discovering a Fascinating Author – Introduction into the Life and Work of Susan Taubes

Karola Raimond and Christoph Dostal will read from Susan Taubes’ and Jacob Taubes’ Correspondence (1950-1952)

All copyrights for the pictures held by the photographers

Participants

Sigrid Weigel

Sigrid Weigel, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c., is Director of the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin. She published on Heine, Warburg, Freud, Benjamin, Scholem, Arendt, Bachmann, Susan Taubes, on cultural history, image theory, memory, secularization, genealogy, and the cultural history of sciences. Released recently: "Escape to Life". German Intellectuals in New York. A Compendium on Exile after 1933 (2012); Walter Benjamin. Images, the Creaturly, and the Holy (2013).

Christoph Dostal

Christoph Dostal was born near Vienna (Austria) and studied acting at the Vienna Conservatory before winning the leading role in Wolfgang Murnberger ́s feature film FOR GOD AND COUNTRY at the age of 22. The film won the Viennese Film Prize and was the official Austrian entry for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars.

Steven Spielberg cast him for his Award winning TV series BAND OF BROTHERS, directed by Tom Hanks and Tony To. Dostal worked in film and television in Austria, Germany and Great Britain and played a leading role in one of the longest running German TV series, FORBIDDEN LOVE, produced out of Cologne.

He moved to Los Angeles in 2010 and has so far played leading roles in three independent films, including the award-winning film LILITH, which is being shown successfully on the festival circuit.

Christoph Dostal also wrote and produced two one-man-shows, based on novels by the famous Austrian author Wolf Haas. Christoph Dostal has been performing his shows for many years in Europe, Georgia, Armenia, Mexico, South Korea and the US. Additionally Christoph Dostal is in post production for his first film as a director - a documentary on his first dance teacher and mentor, the legendary African-American dancer Bob Curtis.

Karola Raimond

Karola Raimond was born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany but frequently travelled between the U.S. and Europe, as her mother is a born and bred New Yorker.

Trained in ballet and martial arts, she discovered acting during high school and continued her studies while majoring in Media Sociology and Social Psychology at Frankfurt University.

After receiving her Masters and publishing her thesis she worked as an on-camera reporter for a Frankfurt news station before returning to acting and landing numerous guest-star roles on German television dramas. She was also a popular Motion Capture actress and worked for all the major European video game manufacturers.

Relocating to Los Angeles in 2008, Karola has since studied with some of the industries most esteemed acting coaches (Howard Fine, Steve Eastin, Diana Castle) and landed parts in multiple television, film and commercial projects.