Ritz Cinemas

DIE REISE NACH LYON

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE OF THE 2K RESTORATION

PRECEDED BY THE WORLD PREMIERE OF THE 2K RESTORATION OF SERIOUS UNDERTAKINGS (1983)

"A provocative, smart, yet woefully underappreciated debut film by the German writer-director Claudia Von Alemann, a contemporary of Chantal Akerman." – Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Elizabeth, a young historian, leaves her husband and child in Germany and travels to Lyon to reconstruct the final months in the life of Flora Tristan (1803-1844). A women’s rights activist, Tristan traveled throughout industrial regions of France fighting for women’s emancipation, the ‘proletarian of the proletarian.’ Well over a century later, Elizabeth, with a tape recorder, wanders the streets of Lyon alone, reconstructing a sense memory of Tristan’s life. 2K restoration.

“I was concerned…with questions of how one can possibly track down a person from another age, how memory relates to history, and how women remember.” — Claudia von Alemann

“Elizabeth’s fascination with the embodiment of history is matched by von Alemann’s documentary-based vision, which makes the city’s ancient buildings, tall stone staircases, and celebrated secret passages reverberate with the passions and the horrors of the past.” — Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Screens with the recently restored SERIOUS UNDERTAKINGS (Helen Grace, Australia, 1983)

Serious Undertakings is a fascinating film about the construction of history, culture and politics. Divided into five segments the film explores how dominant ideas of Australian history, national character and sexual difference are determined by who is telling the story and how it is told.

“Serious Undertakings breaks new ground in understanding the construction of meaning itself and was a landmark Australian film when it was made in 1983…. Helen Grace’s brilliance lies in using the language of cinema to deconstruct and ridicule dominant cultural and political ideas.” — Susan Lambert, Australian film-maker

The 2:30pm screening on Sunday 30 April will be introduced by Helen Grace, director of Serious Undertakings, and Jane Mills, Hon. Associate Professor of the School of the Arts & Media, University of New South Wales.