Events › Expanded Cinema: Magazinist's Anders als die Andern

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this event will be rescheduled to a later date. If you would like to be notified when the new date is confirmed, please email programs@vpl.ca

This event is part of a new series of performances that combine cinema with live music, movement, theatre, and more.

Local experimental music duo Magazinist have produced remarkable original scores for silent films such as Metropolis, Faust, and Vampyr. We're thrilled to present their newest score, reworking the groundbreaking 1919 film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others). This film, produced in Weimar Germany, contains one of the earliest sympathetic depictions of gay men on screen. Written as a polemical response to a law criminalizing homosexuality, Anders was a film revolution which provoked violent reactions from the rising Nazi party. Censorship laws were enacted to prevent its distribution, the writer and director were forced into exile, and nearly all copies of the film were burnt by the Nazis as "decadent art." Through a remarkable act of preservation, this film was partially restored (50 of the original 90 minutes), allowing modern audiences to witness some of the earliest organized campaigns for LGBTQ+ rights. Magazinist will bring this vital piece of history to life with an all new original score of electro-acoustic music.

The event will begin with a brief introduction on the film's history and cultural context by Ervin Malakaj, professor of German Studies at the University of British Columbia and author of Anders als die Andern, a book which explores the film in depth.

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Magazinist is an experimental sound art duo (Matthew Tomkinson, Andy Zuliani) whose compositions make use of extended techniques and materially-driven processes. Combining analog synthesis, digital sampling, and hand-built instrumentation, Magazinist conducts extended sonic studies in the form of immersive installations and multimedia performances.