Some News on Straub and Huillet

Centre Pompidou in Paris runs a full retrospective of the work of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet from 27 May to 3 July. Jean-Marie Straub will be present at three of the screenings. The attention comes following the first complete US retrospective of the couple’s films at MoMA, an exhibition at a gallery in New York, a planned tour of the retrospective across the US, Canada and the English speaking countries in Europe, as well as a complete retrospective in Madrid in October and November.

On the occasion of the retrospectives, three new Straub and Huillet publications are being published.

1. The critical anthology Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet has just been released as part of the great publication series of the Austrian Film Museum. This work, edited by Ted Fendt, is the first English-language “primer” on Straub and Huillet. It features François Albera’s career-spanning interview with the two filmmakers, as well as original essays by Harun Farocki and Jean-Pierre Gorin, amongst others.

2. At the end of this month, Sequence Press publishes a compendium of the couple’s extensive writings. The volume is an expanded and updated version of the previous Spanish and French editions. Writings begins with Straub’s early film criticism from the 1950s and traces the evolution of over five decades of writing activity, from manifestoes and trenchant declaratory texts, to detailed descriptions of working methods, letters, questionnaires and select interviews and oral interventions.

3. Coinciding with the Centre Pompidou retrospective, L’Internationale Straubienne is presented as a collective volume with contributions by critics, artists, collaborators, steadfast straubians or novel converts, compagnons de route or passants. Together, this mosaic constitutes a written and visual journey through their complete filmography.