alr

A Trick of the Light
(Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky)

Screening on Film
Directed by Wim Wenders.
With Udo Kier, Nadine Büttner.
Germany, 1995, 16mm, color and b&w, 80 min.
German with English subtitles.

Six weeks before the Lumière brothers’ legendary screening in Paris of the “first” motion picture, three German brothers in Berlin screened eight film loops. In between the acrobatics and juggling that also occupied their life, Max, Eugen, and Emil Skladanowsky had invented the bioskop. A century later, internationally renowned filmmaker Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, The Buena Vista Social Club) resurrects these little-known pioneers in this whimsical and touching film. With the help of his students from the Munich Film Academy, Wenders captures their story with a mix of documentary and recreated footage—much of it shot silent at eighteen frames per second with a vintage, hand-cranked camera.

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