Double feature and discussion: Straub-Huillet and Matías Piñeiro

Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Thursday, December 1 for a double feature screening of Straub-Huillet’s Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times, or, Perhaps One Day Rome Will Allow Herself to Choose in Her Turn​ (1969, 88 minutes) at 6pm, and Matías Piñeiro’s Isabella (2020, 80 minutes) at 8pm, followed by a discussion with Piñeiro.

This two-session screening constitutes the opening event of “In the Present, the Scripted Past Is Performed,” the first chapter of the four-part series Aesthetics of Resistance: Straub-Huillet and Contemporary Moving-Image Art taking place at e-flux Screening Room in monthly chapters between December 2022 and March 2023. Read more on the series here.

Aesthetics of Resistance: Straub-Huillet and Contemporary Moving-Image Art is produced and organized by e-flux, with the support of the German Film Office, an initiative of the Goethe-Institut and German Films.

Session One: 6pm
Straub-Huillet, Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times, or, Perhaps One Day Rome Will Allow Herself to Choose in Her Turn​
1969, 88 minutes
The first film that Straub-Huillet shot together in Italy (on the Palatine Hill of Rome) and also the first they made in color, Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times… is a faithful adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s Othon, the classic tragedy that premiered at the court of Louis XIV at Fontainebleau in 1664 and today is more hallowed than actually performed. The film depicts the power vacuum that followed Emperor Nero’s death: Against a crowd of obsequious and scheming pretenders to the throne, Corneille has Camille as his epic heroine, the mother of all conscientious objectors. With the play, the film examines the process by which events enter our cultural mainstream, and the process by which their use as part of a communications system is transformed into culture.

Session Two: 8pm
Matías Piñeiro, Isabella
2020, 80 minutes
Followed by a discussion with the filmmaker
Mariel (María Villar) longs to play the role of Isabella in a local theater troupe’s production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, but money problems prevent her from preparing for the audition. She thinks of asking her brother for financial help, but is worried about being too direct. Her solution is to ask her brother’s girlfriend, Luciana (Agustina Muñoz), also an actress and a more self-assured one, to convince her brother to give her the money. Luciana agrees on the condition that Mariel will not abandon her acting and continue to prepare for the part of Isabella. The latest in Matías Piñeiro’s series of films inspired by the women of Shakespeare’s comedies is his most structurally daring and visually stunning work to date. Through their rich and layered performances, Muñoz and Villar demonstrate a profound intimacy formed over more than a decade of collaboration with the director. Isabella is a film about the ongoing battle between doubt and ambition that never discounts the possibility of a new beginning. 

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

Accessibility           
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.         
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the Screening Room and this bathroom.