16 mm film installation, b/w and color, silent
12 min (b/w film)
1 min 35 sec (color film)
Overall dimensions variable


Christoph Schlingensief's ongoing and intense work with the medium film is clearly reflected in his short films that were shot while the artist directed the "Flying Dutchman" at the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil.

The project's central theme is the idea of salvation. Richard Wagner was constantly preoccupied with this idea and in his last opera, "Parsifal" (1882), which Schlingensief staged in 2004 for the Bayreuth Festival, he tried to come to terms with it once and for all.
According to Schlingensief, the "Flying Dutchman" is in search of an image that grants him salvation but finds none. And even Senta, as his loving wife, has an image that she would like to have redeemed and yet finds no happiness in it.

Schlingensief's radicalism lies in his subjective selection and in the non-hierarchical juxtaposition of images, themes and people. He believes in the sensual power of images and in the observer's ability to free himself from his desire for linearity.

"For Schlingensief it is not a question of sharply focused things but rather haziness. I would like to endorse this belief since things that are clear are not inspiring. The world in its entirety is, in fact, incomprehensible." –  Stephanie Rosenthal, excerpt taken from the website of Haus der Kunst, Munich


*1960 in Oberhausen, Germany | † 2010 in Berlin, Germany