Mit Nonchalance am Abgrund - Die Neue Münchner Gruppe - Buchpräsentation und Kurzfilmprogramm mit Dr. Marco Abel

In the organizer's words:

Between 1964 and 1972, the New Munich Group represented one of the most interesting trends in West German cinema, not least because it swam against the mainstream, against the films that film historians generally refer to as "young German cinema". This designation of the so-called "Oberhauseners" - and in the 1970s also of the "New German Cinema" - took place not least at the expense of the New Munich Group. After a few commercially successful films (Zur Sache Schätzchen; Nicht fummeln, Liebling) and after critical acclaim - especially from critics who positioned themselves as the "aesthetic left" in the film criticism of the late sixties against a "political left" that, in their opinion, reduced films to their sociological content and meanings - the charming, "light" films by Rudolf Thome, Klaus Lemke, Max Zihlmann, Roger Fritz, the duo May Spils & Werner Enke and the youngest of the group, Martin Müller, have fallen out of film historiography and the broader public consciousness despite the odd retrospective.

In his recently published book "Mit Nonchalance am Abgrund: Das Kino der Neuen Münchner Gruppe (1964-1972)", the German-American film scholar Dr. Marco Abel describes what distinguishes these "light" films and their heroes and heroines from other films of the so-called Young German Cinema. To mark the publication of the book, we are showing a selection of stylistically influential short films from the 1960s: Galaxis (1967, Rudolf Thome), Manöver (1967, May Spils), Duell (1966, Klaus Lemke), Frühstück in Rom (1965, Max Zihlmann), Zinnsoldat (1968, Martin Müller), Sabine 18 (1967, Marran Gosov) and if there's still room a few surprises and extras!

Movies:

Duel
Director: Klaus Lemke | BRD 1966 | 11 min | 35mm | German original version | with Lotti Ohnesorge, Les Olvedi

An action movie. A young couple is invited to visit their boss. On the way, as he takes a drag of cigarettes, she gets behind the wheel and speeds off in a car. He takes off in a cab in pursuit through Munich at night. The chase takes him through back alleys, shopping arcades, nightclubs and bars. In the end, she clearly wins the duel.

Loan of the film print with the kind support of the Murnau Foundation.

Maneuver
Director: May Spils | BRD 1967 | 10 min | 35mm | German original version | with Werner Enke, May Spils

Emergency alarm clock ringing. A couple demonstrates how to get out of bed in the morning: zigzag. Somewhere on some interpretive horizon, a swinging Munich commentary on the Vietnam War. - One of the more bizarre variations on life for two. Spils' second short film was made after her first film Das Portrait and was also distributed by Constantin-Filmverleih. Manöver ran for weeks as a supporting film in cinemas and was one of the audience successes at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 1966.

Loan of the film print with the kind support of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek.

Galaxis
Director: Rudolf Thome | BRD 1967 | 14 min | 35mm | German original version | with Karin Roth, Annette Radlinger, Monika Zinnenberg

We are in the year 2000: most of the terrestrial men are enslaved. Three young women order two men and ask which of them they would prefer. Thome's third short film gets straight down to business in style: everything is empty and low, anticipating the clean lines of the Eighties. But Galaxis is supposed to depict the time shortly after the turn of the millennium; it is feminist amusement, clever, pretty and nasty, and with no promising prospects for any of the men involved.

Loan of the film print with the kind support of the DFF.

Breakfast in Rome
Director: Max Zihlmann | BRD 1965 | 17 min | 35mm | German original version | with Lutz Bajohr, Ingrid Caven, Eckhart Schmidt

Ingrid Caven's first screen appearance takes place in the cinéphile milieu of Munich in the mid-1960s and refers to the models of the Nouvelle Vague: the game of seduction, the relaxed tone, the city as a setting with its cafés, cinemas and the pub furniture pinball machine and jukebox placed in the picture. It's about a marriage proposal to Sandra (Ingrid Caven), flippant remarks about marriage and film criticism. 'Criticism is a moral issue', agree two young critics talking in front of a poster of Truffaut's 'La peau douce' in the cinema foyer.

Loan of the film print with the kind support of Werkstattkino.

Tin Soldier
Director: Martin Müller | BRD 1968 | 11 min | 35mm | German original version | with Uschi Obermaier, Christian Friedel

Oh idleness, oh idleness, you sacred jewel, the only fragment of godlike nature we have left from paradise. After graduation, you enjoy relaxed days, a pretty girlfriend, secure rent thanks to dad's money. But the money tap threatens to be turned off - if you can't find a job. And what if a Bundeswehr uniform is the answer to Paul's lazy dilemma?

Film print on loan with the kind support of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek.

Sabine 18
Director: Marran Gosov | BRD 1967 | 12 min | 35mm | German original version | with Veruschka Mehring, Sabine A. Wengen, Klaus Lemke

Sabine has not yet. Her boyfriend is shocked. What else can she do but ask a good friend! Things take their course ... In 1960, the Bulgarian Gosov moved from Sofia to Munich at the age of 27 and quickly became part of the Schwabing bohemian scene. His seventh short film, shot in his own apartment, has a very French feel to it, a kind of laconic Rohmer, if such a thing is conceivable.

Loan of the film print with the kind support of the Ramscharchiv Köln.

Free admission | donation requested

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https://kinoimblauensalon.de/de/events/mit-nonchalance-am-abgrund-2025-12-08

Price information:

Free admission | Donation requested