LOTTE EISNER - Timon Koulmasis

14 x 19 cm / 96 pages + DVD / October 2024

isbn: 978-2-35137-362-0

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Admired by Lang, Murnau, Stroheim, Sternberg, Chaplin, Renoir, Brecht and later Godard, Truffaut, Herzog and Wenders, Lotte Eisner, author of L'Écran démoniaque and chief curator of the Cinémathèque française, is a fascinating figure of the 20th century. Hunted by the Nazis and a refugee in France, she was an eternal exile. In her life, the history of cinema and history intersect and illuminate each other.

• DVD

Lotte Eisner - Un lieu, nulle part

(documentary / 59 min. / 2020)

with Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders, Laurent Manonni, Bernard Eisenschitz

prod. Ilona Grundmann Filmproduktion, Acqua Alta (Christophe Gougeon)

Figeac, winter 1941. A village in occupied France. Under the name Louise Escoffier, Lotte Eisner, a German-Jewish refugee, stores in an abandoned château the treasures of new German, Russian and American cinema that Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, had hidden there from the Nazis. She is alone. A few weeks earlier she had escaped from the Gurs concentration camp, thereby avoiding deportation to Auschwitz. Among the rescued reels, she found Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Her life, the history of cinema and history all intersect.

‘With this ‘Eisnerin’ Timon Koulmasis has achieved something magnificent. The film's attitude towards Lotte Eisner, the choice of documents, the way in which we, as young filmmakers at the time, are given a voice, create a sensitive and rare portrait’. (Volker Schlöndorff)

• Bonus

– Sur le chemin des glaces, un film de W. Herzog

– La Bible de Faust, de Laurent Mannoni

– De quelle couleur sont les murs de votre appartement ? (17 min, 2005)

• LE LIVRE

– L’Écran démoniaque (extraits)

– « Situer un lieu, nulle part ? », David Faroult

– « Timon Koulmasis, cinéaste du vent des possibles », conversation avec David Faroult

– Photographies autour de Lotte Eisner