Der Prozess

In the organizer's words:

Content:

The young employee Josef K. is arrested one morning without giving any reason. During his grueling trial, no one explains to him why he is on trial at all. K. receives almost no help from his lawyer either. He is trapped in a nightmare from which there is no awakening until he is picked up for his execution.
THE TRIAL shows Orson Welles' personal interpretation of Franz Kafka's world-famous, surrealist novel about the arrest of an insignificant office worker for no comprehensible reason.

Background:

What happens when (criminal) law becomes an uncontrolled instrument of power? What does the unpredictability of law mean for the individual? What does totalitarian rule look like? And what media of surveillance and control are used?
This film series focuses on cinematic dystopias of (criminal) law: from "The Trial" and "1984" to "Brazil", "Minority Report", "Gattaca", "Children of Men" and "Snowpiercer". The medium of film makes visible what is difficult to convey in legal texts: the omnipresence of surveillance, the fragility of freedom and the powerlessness of the individual.
The series is a cooperation between the law and media studies departments and the municipal cinema of the vhs bochum and endstation.kino. Together we will analyze cinematic perspectives on derailments of the law and ask what contribution films can make to visualizing and critically reflecting on developments in our present.

Admission is 6.00 euros.