Director: Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet, Germany/ France/ Italy 1999, 66 minutes, 35mm, original Italian version with German subtitles

Monday, July 21, 2025, 7 p.m.

Blue Salon, Room 012, HfG Karlsruhe

Free admission, donation requested

The shots of the orange pickers next to the basket of unsold fruit are reminiscent of Tina Modotti and Walker Evans, in other words the great social photography of the twenties and thirties. And after these first images, the traveler from the north or from America, who visits his mother after years of absence, boards the train, and the film travels into the heart of Sicily, which could just as well be the heart of Germany or Persia, but is definitely our heart.

Sicilia! is a condensation, not an abridgement, of a novel by Elio Vittorini from the late 1930s, in which he dreamily, yet laconically and humorously describes his return to Sicily. Straub/Huillet follow their monolithic life project, conceiving their actors in a Brechtian sense as reciting bodies that call out rhythmically composed dialogues to each other. Unrivalled: the almost Dadaist sequence of dialogues between the traveller and the local scissor grinder, who does not grind scissors.

In the supporting program: À propos de Nice
Director: Jean Vigo, France 1930, 24 minutes, 35mm, silent

The Kino im Blauen Salon, the student cinema of the Hochschule für Gestaltung, has been run by students since 2017 and has been a registered association since the beginning of 2024: https://kinoimblauensalon.de/de/news.

More about the film series in summer semester 2025:

Kino im Blauen Salon, the student cinema of the Hochschule für Gestaltung, invites you to the new program for the summer semester! Our film program, which was awarded 1st prize by the Deutsche Kinemathek, is now in its 18th semester! Time to take a brief look back... In our early days, cineastes were few and far between in the Blauer Salon, whereas today the room seems almost too small. But we have always remained true to our ideals: Analog film screenings in 35mm & 16mm, joint voluntary work with free admission and a relaxed HfG atmosphere. And the summer open-air cinema on the lawn in front of the HfG is already in its 6th round, this time at the end of May! So it's time not to look back, but to look forward: To another summer semester full of cinematic-poetic cinema highlights:
Our main interest this summer is poetry, because the nights are getting longer, the horizon endless and there's something in the air. But what does cinema have to do with poetry? Find out in our “Cinema Poetico” series, in which we set off on multiple narrative strands, meandering perspectives, visual detours and everything that lies between the lines. The series presents a hand-picked selection of classics and hidden gems that form the silent branches of cinema.
There are also nightly excursions with our “Midnight Movies”, the legendary Kult Sneak, experimental short film programs, workshops, specials, guests and, of course, the highlight of the cinema year, the open-air cinema in front of the HfG, under the motto “Freedom in Change”. See you soon at the movies!