The Light of the World

Story

Experimentalfilm Footage of electricity pylons, conveyor belts, palm trees, the sea,shot in various parts of the world over a period of 30 years. Klaus Wyborny’s filmStudien zum Untergang [Studies of the Decline] had its worldpremiere in 2010 in Vienna and was then shown at festivals, including Hamburgin 2011. In seven countries and cities in which the Hamburg avant-gardist showed his Studien, he filmed the screen andthe audience during the showing – in South Korea, Rotterdam, Hof, Lisbon, Nikosia, New York and right at the beginning in Vienna. This footage was then editedto make a new film: Das Licht der Welt. Wyborny himself wrote in a letter to the late film essayist Harun Farocki: “Onthe one hand, we see (…) how the film sees the light of the world, on theother the audience is also indirectly lit by the same light that lit my filmsbetween 1979 and 1993, which has something ghostly about it. The thing (…) can maybe be understood as akind of swansong on the classic form of film projection.”

Director

Klaus Wyborny (*1945) is one of Germany's most influential experimental film-makers ofthe recent years. In 1968, he was a founder member of the Hamburger Filmemacher Cooperative and presented his films at e.g.Documenta 5 and 6 in Kassel. In 2015, FILMFEST HAMBURG howed his film Studien zu Monet [Studies of Monet].