"The Ister" by David Barison and Daniel Ross

 

One of the most astounding débuts of recent years will receive its Austrian premiere at the Film Museum. A philosophical video essay, shot along the Danube River, The Ister (2004) is a journey through Europe from the estuary in Romania to the disputable sources of the river in the Black Forest in Germany. Martin Heidegger's lectures on Hölderlin from the year 1942 comprise the material which was the point of departure for the film. The French philosophers Bernard Stiegler, Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe as well as filmmaker Hans-Jürgen Syberberg serve as guides for the trip. They expound theories on the relation between humanity and technology, war and memory, history and culture undergoing transformation, as well as Heidegger's controversial comparison of the Nazi mass murders to the " mechanized food industry". The flow of words is interlaced with a fascinating, associative stream of images, a chain of ideas à la Chris Marker.