Hartmut Bitomsky (1942-2025)
“When the camera records something, then this can be compared to an osmotic process. What was viewed in front of the camera had now gone over onto the film. This is the way in which I conceive of the cinema, as reality in exile, a stranger in a home away from home.”
Hartmut Bitomsky, born on May 10, 1942, in Bremen, was a pioneering German writer, film critic, documentary and essay filmmaker whose work probed the intricate mechanisms of history, society, and cinema. After studying at the Free University of Berlin (1962-1966), he enrolled in the newly founded German Film and Television Academy (dffb), where he studied alongside Harun Farocki and Helke Sander.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Bitomsky was co-publisher and editor of the influential journal Filmkritik and in 1973 founded his production company, Big Sky Film. Early collaborations with Farocki, such as Die Teilung des Alltags [The Division of All Days] (1970) and Eine Sache, die sich versteht [Something Self Explanatory] (1971), explored the engines of social and economic life. His most celebrated work, the so-called “German Trilogy” – Deutschlandbilder [Pictures of Germany] (1983), Reichsautobahn [Highways to the Reich] (1986), and Der VW Complex [The VW Complex] – examines the ideological and technological structures of National Socialism. Other films, including Das Kino und der Tod [Death and the Cinema] (1991) and Das Kino und der Wind und die Photographie [The Cinema and the Wind and Photography] (1992), investigate the mechanics of cinema itself and the ways film can capture and structure reality.
As a writer and essayist, he published several theoretical works on film, such as Die Röte des Rots des Technicolor (1972), Die Wirklichkeit der Bilder (1992), Kinowahrheit (2003) and Geliehene Landschaften. Zur Praxis und Theorie des Dokumentarfilms (2012). His approach to film was deeply rooted in critical theory and influenced by Marxist and Brechtian ideas.
Beyond filmmaking and writing, Bitomsky taught at numerous institutions, including the California Institute of the Arts, where he served as Dean of the School of Film/Video. From 2006 to 2009, he returned to dffb as director. His work reflects a relentless pursuit of attempting to grasp which has put things into motion. Hartmut Bitomsky leaves behind a legacy of intellectual rigor, political engagement, and profound devotion to the art of film.