Rohfilm 1968

Directed by Birgit Hein

One of the most important structural films of the period, Rohfilm demonstrates a radical anti-representational approach, destroying the figurative image and bringing attention back to the ‘raw’ photographic material, particularly its physical form. Resisting a stable reference point, the film is a multi-layered onslaught of blurred impressions, shifting surfaces and grating sounds that activates a form of sensuous viewing. In the making of the film, the Heins employed just about every technique of defamiliarization, including direct intervention on the surface of the film strip, rephotography, remediation, and different kinds of mechanical interruption and destruction. It is a striking example of a truly handmade approach. (Kim Knowles)