A cinematic meditation on Rainer Maria Rilke's "REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND"

 


"The Greater Circulation"
A film by Antero Alli

"Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Requiem for a Friend” is the foundation for this
marvelous drama from underground film legend Antero Alli... this production
is a marvel of mature emotion and deep wisdom; few films have been able to
explore the issues surrounding death with such grace and intelligence."
 Phil Hall, filmthreat.com (5 stars out of five)

WATCH A 3-MINUTE EXCERPT

 

NEXT SCREENING
 WEDNESDAY MARCH 31st, 7:30pm, $5.
HUMANIST HALL, 390 27th Street, Oakland
 FILMMAKER IN PERSON FOR POST-SCREENING Q & A.

 

~ SYNOPSIS ~
(no spoilers)


LLOYD BRICKEN as "Rainer Maria Rilke"

1908, Paris. Over two fever-dream nights in the Hotel Biron, poet
Rainer Maria Rilke writes his epic lament, "Requiem for a Friend",
as a tribute to his good friend, the artist Paula Modersohn-Becker,
who died shortly after giving birth to her first child.

SYLVI ALLI as "the Artist", (painter)
FELECIA FAULKNER as "the Mother", (actress)
and LEAH KAHN as "the Soul Torn Between" (dancer)

One hundred years later a group of three women perform Rilke's
"Requiem" in Berkeley California as a performance ritual evoking
the central drama in Rilke's lament of a woman torn between
choosing a life devoted to her Art or to Motherhood.


LEE VOGT as "The Director"; LLOYD BRICKEN as "The Critic "

The theatre director finds himself mysteriously entangled in the
metaphors of Rilke's prose as they begin to surface throughou their
daily rehearsal process. When a young Rilke-obsessed drama critic
insists on penning a story on their theatrical experiment, the heart
of Rilke's melancholic vision gives way to unexpected redemptions.

 


LLOYD BRICKEN as "Rainer Maria Rilke"

Oh don’t take from me what I am slowly learning. I’m sure you have
gone astray if you are moved to homesickness for anything in this dimension.
We transform these Things; they aren’t real, they are only the reflections
upon the polished surface of our being. -- from "REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND".

 

 

credits, clip, review, dvd

 


>> click image to watch an excerpt from the film <<

"In 'The Greater Circulation' we are enchanted and indeed
haunted, not only by the profound trajectory of Rilke's life
and work, but also by Alli's ability to tell stories within stories,
to make the invisible visible, and to bring to earth what
can only be truly grasped through spiritual vision."
from the Film Review by Cedrus Monte


SYLVI ALLI, LEAH KAHN and FELECIA FAULKNER

VERTICAL POOL and PARATHEATRICAL RESEARCH present an ANTERO ALLI film
"THE GREATER CIRCULATION ". LLOYD BRICKEN, FELECIA FAULKNER, SYLVI ALLI,
LEE VOGT, LEAH KAHN, SLOBODAN PAITCH, ANTERO ALLI as the voice of Rilke.
"Requiem For a Friend" written by RAINER MARIA RILKE. Translation by
STEPHEN MITCHELL. Screenplay by ANTERO ALLI.


SLOBODAN PAITCH as "Rodin" and LLOYD BRICKEN as "Rilke"

Director of Photography, CHRIS RASMUSSEN. Second Unit D.P., SEAN BLOSL.
Sound Recorder, MALCOLM SHERWOOD. Edited by CHRIS ODELL and ANTERO ALLI.
C.G.I. Effects by MICHAEL McWHIRTER. Music by SCRIABIN, BRAHMS, LOOP!STATION,
AMBER ASYLUM, and SYLVI ALLI. Associate Producers: LILY NOVA, FELECIA FAULKNER,
and CHRIS RASMUSSEN. Producers: JODIE EVANS, SYLVI ALLI, and ANTERO ALLI.
Executive Producers, VERTICAL POOL PRODUCTIONS, PARATHEATRICAL RESEARCH
Conceived and directed by ANTERO ALLI

THE DVD
from the filmmaker only

 

about the filmmaker


 

"I have been living with poet Rainer Maria Rilke's epic lament,"REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND", since 1990 and this film celebrates the fruition of my efforts to give visual and theatrical expression to the presences invoked by this magnificent prose work. The final twenty minutes of this film features a live paratheatre performance of REQUIEM that I directed in May of 2005 while this film was in production." - ANTERO ALLI, director

Antero Alli (b. 11/11/1952) is a Finnish born, Berkeley-based underground filmmaker whose deep background in paratheatre infuse his films with their idiosyncratic theatricality. His features screen during rare, limited runs in west coast arthouses and have garnered critical praise from the prestigious filmthreat.com. Alli is also an author of numerous books on "reality-based metaphysics" and the founder/director of ParaTheatrical ReSearch (since 1977), an ongoing exploration of group ritual dynamics that often inform and inspire his films. Antero resides with his wife, the singer/composer Sylvi Alli, in Berkeley CA.


Filmography and Vision Statement
Clips, reviews, interviews, stills, influences

Director's Project Journal
Preproduction observations and notes

 

Click this for more on Rilke and Modersohn-Becker

 

VERTICAL POOL PRODUCTIONS
P.O. BOX 7518, BERKELEY, CA 94707 USA
SYLVI ALLI, producer/composer e-mail
ANTERO ALLI, writer/director e-mail
voicemail: (510) 464-4640


MP3 -- from the film soundtrack by Sylvi Alli

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