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"HELNWEIN - THE SILENCE OF INNOCENCE"

HAS BEEN SELECTED FOR SCREENING AT THE 24TH MUNICH INTERNATIONAL

DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

Premiere:
SO May 10, 2009 | 14:00 | Pinakothek der Moderne
MI May 13, 2009 | 17:00 Gasteig Vortragsaal

Gottfried Helnwein is an artist of clear statements, uninhibited and idiosyncratic. He confronts us with the dark sides of human nature. Silently but mercilessly he uses the fate of the innocent child to bring before our eyes the human capacity for suffering, making the beholder a passive, and indeed active, accomplice to injury and abuse. Helnwein is one of the world’s best-known and at the same time most controversial German-speaking artists of the post-war period. Helnwein is an artist who thinks in political terms, analysing present and historical world events and revealing, there too, the structures of power and violence. All his life he has addressed the issue of the cruel mechanisms of the Nazi period. His pictures are an ongoing appeal against collective amnesia, deliberate or otherwise.

"Well, the world is a haunted house, and Helnwein at times is our tour guide through it.
I think in anything that is really relevant and emotional art, there is some kind of a mirror that people experience. I don't think that you can recognize a feeling from something that you look at unless it's part of yourself, and so when someone is willing to take on the sadness, the irony, the ugliness and the beauty in the kind of way that Gottfried does.
As an artist my strongest reaction to Helnwein's work is that it challenges me to be better at what I do. There are very few people that achieve utter excellence in what they do. And I think that Gottfried Helnwein is certainly one of those people."

Sean Penn

DOK.FEST Munich is Germany's most important and worldwide recognized Festival for documentaries. A »Best-of«-Festival presenting international outstanding films of the past year.

"The Silence Of Innocence - The Artist Gottfried Helnwein"
Germany, 2008, Claudia Schmid, 116 min, International Program.
PRODUCED BY BILDERSTURM FILMPRODUKTION IN COPRODUCTION WITH WESTDEUTSCHER RUNDFUNK (WDR)

Premiere:
SO May 10, 2009 | 14:00 | Pinakothek der Moderne, Ernst von Siemens-Auditorium
MI May 13, 2009 | 17:00 Gasteig Vortragsaal

LINKS:

"Helnwein - The Silence of Innocence" - the transcript

Bildersturm Filmproduktion - press release

helnwein news

dokfest-muenchen.de

dokfest-muenchen.de/events

www.pinakothek.de