pag
e1
pag
e2
ORPHEA
A Music Film
By Alexander Kluge and Khavn
With Lilith Stangenberg and
Ian Madrigal
99 Minutes
Germany 2020
pag
e3
pag
e4
Synopsis
The film ORPHEA is a cooperation between German filmmaker Alexander
Kluge and Khavn De la Cruz, filmmaker from the Phillipines. In the focus of the
music film: Lilith Stangenberg.
The ancient myth of musician Orpheus who wants to bring back his beloved
from the underworld and who manages to win over the hellhound with the
power of music dates back more than 2,000 years. When Khavn, Kluge, and
the whole team were sitting together at the Venice Film Festival after the
premiere of HAPPY LAMENTO the idea arose to make a film from this ancient
story. Everyone agreed that it was sad that Orpheus had not really been able,
after all the many attempts of this myth, to bring his beloved back to daylight.
It was also incomprehensible to all present that such a natural gesture of
turning to see the beloved, should be punished with her death. One would
have to change the sexes: maybe an Orphea would be able to liberate her
beloved from hell.
Music is an art born from Eve’s rib.
In Manila, Khavn’s home city, Lilith Stangenberg goes through a hell. While
passionately searching for her Eurydiko, he is already hot on her heels. At the
same time in Central Europe: Orphea works „in the name of the revolution“
not only for the liberation of her beloved but for the return of all dead: for the
utopia of Apokatastasis Panton. This utopia goes as well with Silicon Valley of
today as with the program of the revolution in 1917.
Nothing in ORPHEA is fixed, all is rythm. Orphea has left behind the ancient
tragedy with its standards, believing in the mammoths of fantasy, the power
of music, and the capacity for love, which are the cornerstones of all cinema.
pag
e5
pag
e6
In the brothels of Manila
pag
e7
ORPHEUS, son of Apollo and Nosferatu /
He couldn’t save his beloved /
Ever since he has called himself EURYDIKO...
pag
e8
The story of ORPHEUS and EURYDICE is about people who bring
back what they love from the realm of the dead...
pag
e9
CERBERUS IN LOVE
"Hiking boots from the realm of the dead"
pag
e10
Lilith Stangenberg sings „Mammoth’s
Return“(1941). Opus posthumum of Th.
W. Adorno. Accompanied on piano
by Sir Henry at Volksbühne am Rosa-
Luxemburg-Platz “What’s that driving in a car and stretching out its long trunk?
What’s that driving in a car and stretching out its long trunk?
It’s a mammoth. It’s a mammoth. It’s a mammoth. And he’s driving home.
It’s a mammoth. It’s a mammoth. And he’s driving home. He’s driving home“.
pag
e11
ORPHEA practices TANGO…
ORFEO, Opera by Jacopo Peri
from1600 … non piango e non sospiro, o mia cara Euridice
Che sospira, che lacrima non posso
Cadavero infelice, o mio cuore, o mio spemme,
O pace, o vita.
The fatal snake bite
25:55 - 26:26
Lilith reads Ovid's account of how the
snake bit Eurydice in the foot:
… and the torch he held would only sputter, fill the eyes with smoke,
and cause no blaze while waving. The result of that sad wedding,
proved more terrible
than such foreboding fates.
While through the grass
delighted Naiads wandered with the bride,
a serpent struck its venomed tooth in her
soft ankle— and she died.
(From Ovid, 11th Book)
pag
e12
Ingmar Bergmann on the metaphor of
the serpent
Lilith: I remember Bergman in the 1960s – when he presented PERSONA –
talking about how art already seems dead to him.
AK: The art of film?
Lilith: Art and cinema. He doesn’t just want to talk about the cinema, he talks
about art: it’s dead. And he uses the image of a snakeskin and says that art is
a dead snake, a snake that’s been eaten. All that’s left is the skin, and the skin
is filled with ants, thousands of ants. The snake doesn’t have any poison left,
it’s dead, but the ants move the skin with busy vitality. You can put a
tourniquet on the arm.
AK: You can put on a tourniquet, you can perform an emergency operation
on the joint, but that’s pretty brutal.
Lilith: Like in Herzog’s diary…
AK: Yes.
Lilith: The Indian who was felling trees, the snake comes and 10 seconds later
he takes his chainsaw and saws off his leg, because he knew: either I survive
without my leg, or in a minute I’ll be dead.
pag
e13
BIOCOSMISTS 1917 / "In the struggle to bring back all the dead”
ORPHEA, BIOCOSMIST:
"It wouldn’t be revolutionary to extend
our own lives while leaving our
ancestors, who worked to achieve all
this, in their dark graves..."
Formula for “The recovery of Eve’s rib”
pag
e14
The entrance to Hades A visit to the king of the Realm of the Dead
"Beggar" / The “Louse Queen”: DUEL in ORCUS“
Song
BEGGAR
I go always
from door-to-door,
Rain-drenched, sun-scorched;
Suddenly I’ll lay my right ear
BbM7 - A7
In my right hand.
Then my voice sounds to me
as if I’d never heard it.
Then I cry for someone else
I cry for ten cents
I cry for myself
I cry for poets
Finally, I close my face
with both my eyes;
the way it lies then in my hand
with its weight, it looks almost like
BbM7 - A7
rest. So they won’t think I don’t have anywhere
to place my head.
I cry for someone else
I cry for ten cents
I cry for myself
I cry for poets
pag
e15
Whirlwinds of Danger
Whirlwinds of Danger (original Polish title: Warszawianka) is a Polish socialist
revolutionary song written sometime between 1879 and 1883. The song
became the anthem of worker protests during the Revolution in the Kingdom
of Poland (1905–1907), when 30 workers were shot during the May Day
demonstrations in Warsaw in 1905.
Whirlwinds of danger are raging around us,
O'erwhelming forces of darkness assail,
Still in the fight see advancing before us,
Red flag of liberty that yet shall prevail.
Then forward ye workers, freedom awaits you,
O'er all the world on the land and the sea.
On with the fight for the cause of humanity.
March, march ye toilers and the world shall be free.
Women and children in hunger are calling,
Shall we be silent to their sorrow and woe?
While in the fight see our brothers are falling,
Up then united and conquer the foe!
Then forward ye workers, freedom awaits you,
O'er all the world on the land and the sea.
On with the fight for the cause of humanity.
March, march ye toilers and the world shall be free.
pag
e16
Off with the crown of the tyrants of favor!
Down in the dust with the prince and the peer!
Strike off your chains, all ye brave sons of labor!
Wake all humanity, for victory is near.
Then forward ye workers, freedom awaits you,
O'er all the world on the land and the sea.
On with the fight for the cause of humanity.
March, march ye toilers and the world shall be free.
pag
e17
From the Egyptian Book of the Dead
Found by Senior Lieutenant Friedrichs, reservist and teacher, in Greece, 1941
"Orphic Lamellae” (in gold) / From the Egyptian Book of the Dead
01:07:45 - 01:09:59 Lilith:
(from Eleutherae in Crete: second century B.C.)
"A: 'I am dry with thirst and am perishing.'
B: 'Come, drink please, from the ever-flowing spring on the right, where the
cypress is. Who are you, and where do you come from?'
A: 'I am the son of Earth and Starry Heaven.'"
On the right side of the well-fitted house of Hades is a spring, and close to this
stands a shining cypress: Around this place the descending souls cool
themselves.
"For in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of those from whom she has
received the penalty of ancient crime back again from beneath into the light
of the sun above, and these are they who become noble kings and mighty
men and great in wisdom and are called saintly heroes in after ages."
I have entered under the bosom of the lady of the house, the Queen of the
Underworld, I have passed with swift feet from the desired wreath
Hail you who have suffered the Suffering, but this you have never suffered
before: You have become (a) god from human: A kid has fallen into milk.
As an ox you leaped into milk
Quickly you leaped into milk
A ram you cast yourself into milk.
pag
e18
Lilith: What a crazy text.
AK: Yes.
Lilith: (The mystagogue speaks:)
When the soul has left the light of Helios, you must . . . . . turn to the right. The
soul must take care, must not drink from the water of Lethe, must tell the
guards the whole truth, with the prescribed passwords.
The experience never before experienced by the soul must be the elevation
to the higher status of the pious.
Greetings, take the right-hand path to the sacred meadows and the grove of
Persephone.
The soul must take care, must not drink from the water of Lethe, must tell the
guards the whole truth, with the prescribed passwords.
pag
e19
Orphea’s journey on the River Lethe
pag
e20
Lethe ("River of Oblivion")
Styx ("River of the Dead")
Hades ("Realm of the Dead")
Silicon Valley / "We’re working on immortality"
Formula for eternal life
pag
e21
Kinderkreuzzug 1939 (Bert Brecht)
In Poland, in nineteen thirty-nine,
there was the bloodiest fight:
turning ev’ry town and village
into a wilderness of night.
Lost children were scuttling, hungry;
in little formations were seen.
There they gathered with others,
standing where villages once had been.
They wanted to fly from the fighting,
let the nightmare cease;
and one fine day they’d come
upon a land where there was peace.
In Poland that same January,
they caught a dog half strangled:
a cord was hung round his scraggy neck
and from it a notice dangled.
Saying this: please come and help us!
Where we are we cannot say.
We’re the five-and-fifty
the dog knows the way.
The writing was in a childish hand.
Peasants had read it over.
Since then more than a year has gone by.
The dog starved: he didn’t recove
pag
e22
pag
e23
pag
e24
For me to bring back from Hell the
dearest thing I have …
"That’s what music is for!”
pag
e25
pag
e26
BIOGRAPHY, Khavn As the director of 51 feature-length and 115 short films, author of six books and
composer of 23 albums, he is one of the Philippines’ most renowned
contemporary artists. His poetry and stories have won him the Don Carlos
Palanca Memorial Award. The 2008 Forum screened his film THE MUZZLED
HORSE OF AN ENGINEER IN SEARCH OF MECHANICAL SADDLES. In 2009, he
was a member of the International Short Film Jury at the Berlinale.
"The Filipino Renaissance man Khavn is one of the best kept secrets of the digital
underground cinema. Khavn (...) may seem like a foolish punk, but in the end
he is also an outstanding rebel."
Film Comment (New York)
"The Enfant terrible of Philippine cinema"
Giovanni Spagnoletti, Festival Director, Pesaro Film Festival
pag
e27
"Khavn deserves a place in the international league of experimental and cult
filmmakers as well as Japan's Takashi Miike, Germany's Jörg Buttgereit and
South Africa's Aryan Kaganof/ Ian Kerkhof."
Gertjan Zuilhof, Programme Manager, Rotterdam International Film Festival
Filmography, Khavn (selection)
2018 BAMBOO DOGS
2017 BALANGIGA: HOWLING WILDERNESS
2016 ALIPATO – THE VERY BRIEF LIFE OF AN AMBER
2016 SIMULACRUM TREMENDUM
2015 DESPARADISO
2014 RUINED HEART – ANOTHER LOVESTORY BETWEEN A CRIMINAL AND A
WHORE
2013 MISERICORDIA – THE LAST MYSTERY OF KRISTO VAMPIRO
2010 MONDOMANILA
2009 THE MIDDLE MYSTERY OF KRISTO NEGRO
2008 THE MUZZLED HORSE OF AN ENGINEER IN SEARCH OF MECHANICAL
SADDLES
2008 MANILA IN THE FANGS OF DARKNESS
2007 SQATTERPUNK
pag
e28
Biography, Alexander Kluge
Alexander Kluge Born in Halberstadt in 1932. He studied Law, History and
Church music and has been working as a writer and film maker. He was one
of the originators of the Oberhausen Manifesto in 1962. In 1966, he completed
his first feature film, ABSCHIED VON GESTERN. His last film HAPPY LAMENTO –
also with Khavn – was shown at the Venice film festival in 2018. At the end of
the 1980s, Kluge devoted himself to television and in 1988 he founded the
production company dctp (Development Company for Television Programs),
through which he developed his own television formats.
pag
e29
Filmography, Alexander Kluge (Selection):
2020 ORPHEA
2018 HAPPY LAMENTO
1985 Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf die übrige Zeit (THE BLIND DIRECTOR)
1983 Die Macht der Gefühle (THE POWER OF FEELINGS)
1979 Die Patriotin (THE FEMALE PATRIOT)
1978 Deutschland im Herbst co-directed by Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner
Fassbinder, Edgar Reitz (GERMANY IN AUTUMN)
1976 Der starke Ferdinand (STRONGMAN FERDINAND)
1973 Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin (PPART-TIME WORK OF A DOMESTIC
SLAVE)
1967 Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos (A DOCTOR FROM HALBERSTADT)
1966 Abschied von Gestern (YESTERDAY GIRL)
pag
e30
Teams
Directors
Alexander Kluge & Khavn
Production
Kairos Film Alexander Kluge
Rapid Eye Movies Stephan Holl & Antoinette Köster
Script
Alexander Kluge & Khavn, Douglas Candano
Lilith Stangenberg as Orphea
Ian Madrigal as Euridiko
pag
e31
Kairos Film
Camera: Thomas Willke, Walter Lenertz, Vincent Schaack, Michael Kurz,
Frédéric Krauke
Postproduction & Editing: Kajetan Forstner, Andreas Kern, Roland Forstner,
Erich Harant, Toni Werner
Organisation: Barbara Barnak, Beata Wiggen
Music
Gran Tango de Salon / DIE MARNE-SCHLACHT / Composed by Eduardo Arolas
(1919)
ORFEO / Composed by Jacopo Peri (1600)
STENKA RAZIN / Russian traditional
RÜSSEL-MAMMUTS HEIMKEHR / Composed by Th. W. Adorno (1941)
Auschnitt aus Beethovens “FIDELIO” / Bayrische Staatsoper München
Ausschnitt aus Monteverdis “ORFEO” / Staatsoper Stuttgart
Ausschnitt aus Glucks “ORPHEUS UND EURYDICE”
pag
e32
Kamias Overground
Production Design: Martin Yambao
Costume Design: Zeus Bascon, Kim Perez, Antoinette Köster
Animation: Roxlee
Musical Arranger: Diego Mapa
Editing: Lawrence S. Ang
Sound Design: Mikko Quizon
Colorist: Timmy Torres
Junior Colorist: Carla Manalo
Assistant Director & Production Manager: Kristine Kintana
Music Supervisor: Stephan Holl
Location & Production Manager: Santie Navarro
Casting & Assistant Production Manager: Mikee Quejada
Assistant Production Manager: Amaya Han
Additional Photography: Jippy Pascua, Jet Leyco, Francis Guillermo, Rocky
Aurelio, Keith De Venecia, JB Corpuz
pag
e33
Subtitle Translation; Joel Toledo, Maria Estela Paiso, Vim Nadera
Music:
Words & Music by Khavn / Lyrics inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Die
Stimmen” / Vocals Lilith Stangenberg / Arranged by Diego Mapa /
Recorded by Diego Mapa at Pulse Wave Studio & by RJ Mabilin at
Redverb Studio
Khavn on Piano, Diego Mapa on electric guitar
“TRINKER” Featuring Lamenti
(Karlik)
“BALO” Featuring Raye Lucero on vox & Gerry Duran on guitar
“LABINGDALAWANG SUGAR NG PUSO” (Twelve Wounds Of The Heart) /
Poem by Francisco Balagtas
“IDIOT” / “DRUNK” / “LEPER” / “ORPHAN” / “LEAF SUICIDE” / Featuring
Rico Dahon on leaf
(Pjanitza) / “BEGGAR” / “PULUBI” / Featuring Racquel de Loyola on vox
“BLIND” / “MARIMBA SUICIDE” / Featuring Charlie Sage on vox and Leo
Saballe on marimba
“TIWAKAL” / “HINAHANAP” / (Looking) / Poem by Khavn
“BWAKEVA + BWAKIGO” = Touch By Touch / Music by Martin de Mesa &
/ Maan de Loyola
Martin de Mesa on vox / Maan de Loyola on melodica
pag
e34
Rapid Eye Movies
Antoinette Köster & Stephan Holl
Associate Producer : Raimond Göbel
Marketing & Festivals : Thorsten Peters
Subtiteling; Babelfisch, Henrike Bauer
Title Design & Artwork: Mario Lombardo
Accounts & Legal: Anne-Sophie Quancard
pag
e35
The next relative of Orphea in Milan is
Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Studio
d'Orphée".
Jean-Luc Godard, “Le Studio d’Orphée” | Photo: Agostino Osio - Alto Piano
pag
e36
pag
e37
PRESS AGENT
Greenhouse PR
Silke Lehmann, [email protected], +49 151 68100088
Almut Susanne Wilmes, [email protected], +49 170 68 997 68
Potsdamer Str. 139, 10783 Berlin
www.greenhouse-pr.com
WORLD SALES Rapid Eye Movies
Stephan Holl, [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION & FESTIVALS Kinostart in Deutschland im Juni 2020
Rapid Eye Movies
Thorsten Peters, [email protected] 0221 569579 70
Antwerpener Str. 6 -12
50672 Köln
www.rapideyemovies.de
The production is supported by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW
© 2019 / Kairos Film / Rapid Eyes Movies
pag
e38