Hartmut Bitomsky Movies

Clearly influenced by Brecht and Jean-Marie Straub, criticizes the reduction of human relations to economic relations as well as the US imperialism in Vietnam.

A man and a woman meet in a bar. They walk through the night without any reason. At dawn they separate again. A long take.

Documentary about highway constructions in Nazi Germany.

"Highway 40 West" (1980/81) is the first of a series of documentaries by Hartmut Bitomsky (born 1942 in Bremen) which brought him international fame. Each of these films is dedicated to both, a specific and title-giving object and its historical-critical analysis. Such as in "Highway 40 West": For...

“Six young people move through a city in order to establish the starting point of their joint action. But they can’t agree on the topic. In the end everybody goes their own way and leaves the city.” - Hartmut Bitomsky

The two-part film by Hartmut Bitomsky is an "essay film with a plot." It revolves around the transportation of books that are meant to go from Munich to Cologne. It's about reading the right texts, deciphering secret messages, the violence that emanates from books and sometimes doesn't return. At...

Short thriller about an older woman and an escaped convict.

Bitomskys new film was inspired by the Japanese shakkei, which stands for the “borrowing” of a landscape. Japanese gardens are often planned so that a found “natural” landscape is connected with designed elements. For his film Bitomsky rediscovers his own material – like STAUB (2007) and...

Documentary about the history and the fabrication of Volkswagen.

Melanie Straub lives aimlessly into the day, or more accurately: into a Saturday. She′s alone at home, surrounded by the emptiness of her new life.

A detailed, historical documentary about the construction and capabilities of the United States military's B-52 bomber.

Alexander Kluge and Hartmut Bitomsky discuss the film Staub (Dust). Dust is called “matter in the wrong place.” In fact, dust is an irresistible state of dissolution at the beginning and end of all things and living things.

“Why does cinema need death, when it can’t show it?” The filmmaker’s monologue and the discourse of images meet

This compilation film focuses on the contents of Nazi propaganda shorts such as "The Beauty of Work" (1934), "We Have No Problems" (1933), or "The Will To Live" (1944) that preceded the feature films in German movie theaters between 1933 and 1945. The shorts reveal that men and women workers were...

Documentary about the films of John Ford.