Sliding scale admission: $5–25. Please pay what you can; proceeds support Northwest Film Forum during our closure. About this series:The monthly film series <a href="https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/gps/ver.cfm?event_id=21789270&amp;fuseaction=events.detail&amp;" target="_blank" class="ql-size-huge">GERMAN CINEMA NOW!</a> is curated by <a href="https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/gps.html" target="_blank" class="ql-size-huge">Goethe Pop Up Seattle</a>. This year, the series explores themes of disruption and continuity to inspire public dialogue about the ways in which the past shapes our moment and can inform a radically different future. Film stills courtesy of Rapid Eye Movies.

** A Q&amp;A with co-director Khavn and&nbsp;Goethe Pop Up Seattle Program Curator Martin Schwartz accompanies the screening. ** The opening credits of Orphea—co-directed by Alexander Kluge, polymathic elder statesman of the German avant-garde and lion of the New German Cinema, and the Filipino author, artist, musician, and insanely prolific film auteur Khavn—feature tasteful line drawings over soulful organ music. After that, all hell breaks loose. Literally. The stations of the classical Orpheus’ journey are given on title cards throughout, but this is not your middle school’s 1:1 retelling of a Greek myth. Through the fire, darkness, and rock’n’roll of a mostly nocturnal Manila, the film’s gender-flipped protagonist, Orphea (played by Sundance and Berlinale favorite Lilith Stangenberg, Wild), searches this Hades not only for her lover, Euridiko (Ian Madrigal, Nymphomaniac), but also for the Apokatastasis panton, the redemption of all humankind from death. But how? Through music? Film itself? Art? But here is one of Orphea’s many dead ends: art is dead, per Ingmar Bergman (per Stangenberg, per Kluge and Khavn) and is at best the venomless skin of a departed snake, made to dance by an infestation of ants. Orphea turns to the work of the Soviet Biocosmists, who sought to overthrow death as part of the socialist struggle. Here and in an unexpectedly serious late movement on migration and refugees, the film’s subversive use of documentary and archival material activates the tradition of Godard and Marker. If you think that meditations on the links among capitalism, art, and death are inconsistent with the specter of the radiant Stangenberg being pushed on a handcart through a Manila railyard singing cheesy Russian karaoke, Orphea will convince you otherwise. Orphea’s fast cutting rhythm, glee in greenscreen and lip-synching, and use of different film and digital mediums make clear its delight in surfaces, while its hits of unexpected pathos shows that those ants in the snakeskin are putting on a hell of a show. (Martin Schwartz) “Kluge’s and Khavn’s film ultimately shows that the effect cinema has on its spectator is often mysterious, because its effect on the spectator is never fixed…In the end, Orphea shows that cinema is always comprised of conflict – the inevitable dialectics of cinematography. Orphea is a film to cherish.” – Sophie Cato Maas, Frameland "Culled from a collage of highly stylized vignettes and with a conceptual fluidity of video art, Orphea plays out at times like a Brechtian operetta adapted for the screen and at others like an installation. One thing is certain: This freewheeling, epic love story is a rambunctious ride." – Ela Bittencourt, Viennale

Orphea

German avant-garde filmmaker Alexander Kluge and Filipino film auteur Khavn reinvent Orpheus and Eurydice as a rock musical set in contemporary Manila.

A Q&amp;A with co-director Khavn and&nbsp;Goethe Pop Up Seattle Program Curator Martin Schwartz.

Interview: Khavn & Martin Schwartz

A Q&A with co-director Khavn and Goethe Pop Up Seattle Program Curator Martin Schwartz.

United States of America

Sliding scale

Community Ticket

Northwest Film Forum1515 12th Ave.Seattle, WA 98122 No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution. We are a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and our tax ID number is 91-1702331. Please contact your employer to inquire about corporate matching.

Support Northwest Film Forum!

Gift Cards

These are all the passes tied to your account. Now, use our online schedule to reserve tickets. You can access your tickets via {{my_tickets_link|"My Tickets"}} or via the PDFs attached to each ticket order confirmation email. {{buy_pass_link|Looking to buy more passes?}}

These are all your purchased tickets. All programs in this festival will be screened virtually at their corresponding showtimes, and these tickets grant you access to them. (Unless explicitly stated, film screenings will not take place at Northwest Film Forum.)

NWFF Members: $50

General Engauge 2020 Pass

NWFF Member Pass

Sliding Scale: $100

Sliding Scale: $125

Sliding Scale: $75

Travessias 2020 General: $50

Travessias 2020 NWFF Member: $35

None available

Passes

The monthly film series GERMAN CINEMA NOW! is curated by Goethe Pop Up Seattle. In 2021, the series explores themes of disruption and continuity to inspire public dialogue about the ways in which the past shapes our present moment and can inform a radically different future. — The film screenings are presented in partnership with Northwest Film Forum. Tickets to all screenings are pay-what-you-can; we encourage viewers to give within their means! All ticket proceeds will benefit Northwest Film Forum and other local organizations.

This pay-what-you-can monthly series of contemporary German films is curated by Goethe Pop Up Seattle and presented by Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. In 2021, the series will be dedicated to exploring themes of disruption and continuity.