Introduction

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hello and welcome to the aah on film my name is Ryan Ferguson I’m the curator of film at the Art Gallery of Hamilton each

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week we take in a more in-depth look at one of the films currently screening during our virtual cinema which can be

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found online at art gallery of Hamilton comm this week we’re discussing the film beyond the visible helmet off Clint a

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film that takes an in-depth look at a pioneering artists in the world of abstraction and one whose work was

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seldom if ever seen during her lifetime films a fascinating look into the creative mind of Hilma off glint and

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also profiles a lot of the work to have her place in art history recognized we

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also looked at this film last week our curator of contemporary art Melissa Bennett and her guest painter Andrea

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Kastner discussed hilma’s work mysticism in the arts their experiences seeing

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homeless work in person for the first time and the patriarchy in art history was very thoughtful and interesting

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discussion which is available to watch on our YouTube page now and today

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Halina Dersch goes with us Halina is a producer and director based in berlin germany she’s the founder of ambrosia

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ambrosia film beyond the visible helm off Clint is her debut feature as a director and we’re very fortunate to

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have her today to discuss the film thank you for joining us Lena yeah and how is

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everything in Berlin today yeah it’s fine we have the best of weather’s to go

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for a walk and everybody’s enjoying the Sun right now so yeah here in Canada

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were a few weeks away from that but we’re looking forward to it as well it comes it comes so Halina it’s been close

The past year

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to a year since you and I first talked about this film over an email exchange I

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was at the Canadian premiere of the film at hot dogs last spring I’m curious what

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the past year has been like for you and for this film as it’s grown from its

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festival runs to a theatrical release now yeah I mean I had it quite

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overwhelming year last year I was twice in Canada

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haven’t been in Canada before but in a year twice that was really nice and I

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enjoyed the Toronto Film Festival very much I thought it was absolutely fabulous and even in very interesting

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filmmakers and people you can meet there and I was absolutely happy about this response of the film of course and it

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was actually in Toronto where people queued in line I mean 400 people that

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was really fabulous for me and yeah I’m very happy that the that so many people

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love Hill Markland and that I could even get more people intrigued – yeah be

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interested in hellmouth claims work so this is your your debut feature-length

What led you to make this film

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directorial project what was it about Hilma off Clint that led you to choose

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to decide that this was going to be the project that you devoted this a massive amount of time towards yeah actually I

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was working on a different project a fiction film but the first time I saw

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her paintings at the exhibition here in Berlin it came in 2013 here to Berlin I

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was I’m I was speechless first when I saw them but then I was I felt so angry

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right in the middle of the museum and I couldn’t believe that this was shown to

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me so late and I thought and I asked myself and I was talking to the curator

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there at the opening show and I said how can that be that I have never heard of

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her I have read before I came to the exhibition of read a lot about Hilma of

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Clint and when I was standing there realizing this this is complete irva in

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front of me was so huge so colorful so bold and so significant I immediately

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knew that everything that was said by that time even nowadays that she was

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forgotten must have been a lie and so I decided right away to make a film about

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that I didn’t know that it but it went I mean it was not easy to finance in the first place but it went on you know it

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always went on so I could really finish this film first so and I was working five years on that really yeah because

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it was I had to do a lot of research but it was a fabulous time yeah yeah it’s a

What was the research process like

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it’s a obviously a very heavy research project the body of work that Hilma created is so vast not just the

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incredible number of paintings but the journals there’s thousands of journals I think it is more than 20,000 pages not

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just 25 notebooks okay but you have

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every notebook has 300 or 400 pages so you have really thousands of pages and

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although I learned of course I had to learn Swedish and Swedish is yeah a

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little bit familiar with German but not much so I I just had to learn that was

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the first thing I did after the exhibition I got myself a teacher in Berlin because I thought I actually need to read a

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little bit that I could read and see what is important for me but of course I

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couldn’t read all the notebooks and I had help and Johanna Flint was a big

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help I mean the grandnephew Appel Markland who was running the foundation

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by this time he was extremely how Poland was very nice actually going with him and to the archives and also he showed

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me all the places where Homer Flynn lived the first research we research trip I did to Sweden we were traveling a

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lot from Stockholm to the nature parts and the countryside where she stayed and

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then I realized what possibilities I had to show in the film because when I

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started I had exactly three photographs of film a friend and no material of

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course yes so when you have this massive body of work and you’re as you’re saying

How did you approach the project

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it’s a long-term project that involved learning a new language how do you as an artist in a filmmaker how do you

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approach that body of work and and and and distill it into 70 to 90 minutes of

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feature-length film yeah I mean well of

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course I didn’t read all the pages and everything was there but first of all I had to look at the I was lucky because

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by the time I started the research the museum in Stockholm had done one

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important thing they have digitalized her whole era so I was able to watch and

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all of her paintings but those are more than a thousand more than a thousand

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paintings you know big and small ones but you have them digitalising I just

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realized now that even now when I’m going through it again and again and I have seen them really for a long undreds

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of time I still recognize something new I think oh well I didn’t I remember this

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one this so it’s really a huge amount of paintings and it’s so interesting

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because sometimes she has written in the paintings and this even I would say this even goes beyond the art because she

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doesn’t have created just a huge amount of art pieces but this is also something

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she really tried to figure out what does it mean to be on this planet and let’s

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say what the hell are we doing here so yeah I mean this is really something important this was I think the the

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question that drove for her the most and that’s what you can see and that’s why it is always so interesting to look at

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her paintings and so I had really to come closer to what what her intention

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was and that helped a bit to pick some of them most let’s say yeah I tried to

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pick of the most interesting quotes of her give her a voice through the film

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but of course what I also really liked is in the film I’m going very detailed

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in some I’m going to show details of the paintings and of course in cinema it’s

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even bigger but when you see it on a big screen you can see a whole painting you

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think oh that’s great but then you see when you see one of the 10 largest you realise that this is just a tiny little

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detail but it could be the whole world it could be just one painting but that’s

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how huge it is and the micro and the macro cosmos is a huge role in her in

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all of her writings and her paintings so that was a good yeah I think that was a

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good possibility for me to address that you know all the details and even the

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huge so because this is what she’s looking at she’s looking at life she’s looking at a little flower here on the

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planet and then she looks at the universe and so you need to get that all together and and one thing I really

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enjoyed doing the film was because that is something that just film can do

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because you can do magic sometimes in films is the cross overs I knew that I am using a lot of crossovers to combine

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nature with her paintings because I wanted to show that she somehow is showing life and nature is something

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that humankind hasn’t created and that was important to address something that we haven’t done we haven’t invented that

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it was here before us and and that’s how she looked at it as well and and then

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you can do this cross overs but I think what was very interesting is also to do the crossovers with her series for

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example the Swan series you do with crossover and then you can see how accurate she was painting actually very

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mathematical in a way but actually you see how one painting is developing the

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next you know you go really it’s really a journey it’s not just a series and it’s changing but it’s really like

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they’re coming out of each other so I believe yeah so but that was the process of course with my editors you

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know I um I started with this idea but then everybody tried something new well

How did the narrative threads develop

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and when you’re telling a story that is almost entirely untold and there’s so

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much information to to communicate of an artist’s life I am curious about

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how the the narrative threads that run throughout the film developed were they

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you know conscious decisions you were making going in to the making of the film or are the threads starting appear

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during the editing process as there is or is it a mix yeah yeah I would say of

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course it’s a mix it’s a mix sometimes you I mean some of the things were quite

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evident in the beginning I knew I had to address also the problem that she was excluded because that’s how I started I

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said okay why why don’t I start there where I was when I was standing there and saying what no it’s not true you

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can’t tell me that because you can’t just you can say oh I don’t like this right or this painting that’s okay but

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you can’t say I have forgotten it the moment you have seen it you don’t forget I think this must be a lie and

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especially for art historians and and so those things became quite clear but of

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course with the documentary and for me was the first documentary you realize that in the editing process some things

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you thought would work do not work and then you have to come up with something

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new but I mean that’s the great thing about art you can find other ways and

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new ways and what was so interesting was also when I stopped it I was quite alone

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with my material because I had to wait before them I was due I was doing them

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yeah half a year I was doing with the editor most of the work you know to organize things and stuff and then I had

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to wait for my second editor because before she started and I was alone with my material that was very great and that

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is actually something about Clint talks a lot about that you really have to be for yourself and in stillness somehow

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and and yeah and afterwards I realized oh that was the time where I had a lot

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of ideas came up which I didn’t knew that they existed let’s say because I

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was just trying to find ways and then with the editor it’s very interesting as some somebody comes in

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you who doesn’t know anything he asks you or she she did my editor ante she asked me a lot of questions where I

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always thought but that’s completely obvious and she said no it is not and so you go on and talk a lot and so

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everything yeah everything went its way so it’s an interesting process very very

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great yeah yeah it almost builds as a mystery as you’re sort of discovering

Did Kandinsky see Hilmas work

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new steps along the way one of the things that the film goes into some

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depth regarding is the potential ties between Hilma and Kandinsky and the

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possibility it teases that the possibility that he may have even seen her work that decision as a filmmaker

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and also I’m curious if there have been any you know if that if there’s been new information or insight into that thread

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of the story since the film’s well the decision to say that I’m just saying

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that that I think I mean it’s just it was really clear that in the same year

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Hilma of Clint met Buddhist Tina she he also met Kandinsky and Kandinsky was

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very interested in her – Tina’s way of working and he was just at the beginning of his anthroposophical society and

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everything and honestly I don’t know nobody knows so far but I think we

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haven’t looked at every you know at every written letters there are

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correspondences whatever maybe we find something but I just wanted put it of

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course on purpose in the film because I want people to discuss that because I

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think honesty art history is so extremely narrow minded and I think we

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need discussions like that it’s not that I’m saying this is right or something but I think there is the possibility and

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there still is a possibility and for example what also occurred to me is when

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I was right at the end of almost ending the editing process

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this postcard from London popped out Johan often called me and said Halina there’s a postcard and I said oh that’s

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so great I was waiting for this postcard must be an evidence somewhere that she

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has been maybe there and it was the evidence that she was really showing her

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paintings in London and so we we knew what we were looking for in a friend of mine found in the archive I sent she was

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living in London I sent her to their archive in London and said look at this archive because probably find and she

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found the program off this spiritual spiritual conference and there we knew

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him a friend was showing her paintings and Mondrian Piet Mondrian was alive at

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this time still and he was living in Amsterdam not too far away you know from

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London and he was at theosophist all of his life I wonder if he visited the spiritual conference possible because he

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always wanted to meet washed ina which he couldn’t he was dead by this time but

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maybe he was I don’t know maybe he was connected with the people over there and he maybe he has met even he’ll not play

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maybe they talk you know maybe he saw we didn’t know exactly what she showed there but you know it’s possible then

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wandering on him I think just standing in front of the painting is saying oh you know that’s interesting tell me

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about where you work miss Afghan and you know and it’s just a possibility and I

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like that we just think in this ways because I don’t think we should be so

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sure about things especially in our history when it’s written you know I have the feeling some some at some point

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someone has written something and nobody wants to change it anymore yeah there’s

The Art Gallery of Hamilton

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so many possibilities but we’re incomplete stories an interesting thing

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for our organization I obviously work at the Art Gallery of Hamilton we have

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started a bit of research based on showing this film yeah Gallery was

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founded in 1914 as the results of a donation of paintings by an artist named

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William Blair Bruce so Bruce was born here in Hamilton but spent much of his late life in Sweden

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and his partner in Sweden Karolina benedict’s Bruce it turns out studied at

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the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts at the same time as Hilma oh so yeah our

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curators have done extensive research on Bruce obviously because our whole organization was founded on a donation

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of his work and so he and his partner

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Karolina had a they lived on an island in Sweden worked till the ends of their

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lives there it’s still a it’s a museum

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and they do our artists residences there as well right and there is apparently one of hilma’s

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landscape studies from school is there as well okay yeah but but people told me

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about that and I had done I remember that I that’s time ago but I read about both of them

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very interesting because they’re both worked and yeah and sculpture and yeah

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yeah that’s interesting oh so it’s taking us on a little bit of an investigative journey as well yeah

Archives

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there are extensive journals and letters correspondence letters at Bruce bow as

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well that you never know there may through going through archives you never know what you’re gonna find yeah and it’s really hard what I’ve

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found out if you go to archives especially for example when I wasn’t Donna I’m Switzerland and the wood of

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China archives and they have huge archives so if you put something at the

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wrong place you will never find I mean it will maybe take you years to find it again well I mean

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really hard work but even to look close at things is also something so this is

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very interesting story I’m really curious what will come out of that because if you haven’t looked even if

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you have for example if somebody writes a biography about this what was his name William Bruce or something

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and he has some correspondence with him maybe he mentioned something about her or another artist but if you don’t know

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what he’s talking about you don’t pay any attention because this is something that also occurred to me while doing the

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research on the film that on many many even where me when I was reading some

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letters it retook me sometimes twice to read them to realize oh this is important because sometimes maybe you

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have to look there and then you find something it’s but that makes it so very very interesting yeah it’s a bit of a

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mystery yeah I think just to switch gears on the film a little bit here

Filming Art

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because we haven’t even really talked directly about the most important aspect of helmets work it’s the art itself the

20:43

the photographing that artwork filming that artwork could be a very difficult

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task and it’s so beautifully presented in the film I thought perhaps you’d

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maybe take a couple minutes to talk about how you approach doing that what the opportunity window of opportunity to

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film the works were and how that all yeah actually that was yeah maybe maybe

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also a very time-consuming part to to film laughs lens paintings because

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especially the ten largest are so huge but when I was starting and the

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exhibition was 2013 until the end of 13 in in Berlin it was cleared was going to

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Malaga in some other place such as Spain and some other place but I didn’t know for how long

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the I would be able to film the the paintings you know when they were

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hanging because I as I have seen the art the archive afterwards I knew that I

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couldn’t do this filming in the archive is what was two tiny little archive and it was mess and they didn’t have a lot of money

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on organization so I needed to go and so fortunately the the the tour of this

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exhibition it was touring two more years to through Europe and and so I traveled

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there so and was very lucky because I was going to the Luciano museum in Copenhagen near Copenhagen which is the

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beautiful Museum and they were absolutely the staff was really this was actually yeah that was the best museum

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staff I’ve ever have met I have to say because they were very open and they led us in when when we could do the filming

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when nobody was there you know before the museum opened but thing is if you

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film details of such a big big canvas you know it’s three meters 20 high it’s

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really time consuming because even the details you have to put on new lenses and change the lenses and then go did

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this detail and then have to look there in that and then you need to go to get the wider shot and whatever so you take

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hours just for you know just for the 10 you know or or even days I have to say

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sometimes and so I we were really actually we had long days because I said

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okay just take everything what we can what we can get and I have to I have to

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confess we did not have Barry I mean we of course we were under budget I don’t

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know if you say that it was like that we didn’t have the full budget of the film what we would have needed but so you

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have also to be very let’s say creative in a way but I had fabulous my deal

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piece were absolutely great in this way and also very creative because I didn’t

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had a crane or something I couldn’t go I didn’t have the money to afford you know big big technical things just to get

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everything done and and but but it worked anyhow I mean that’s how we managed even

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in the yeah the simple ways you can get through I think even when you have ideas you you can make it and for everybody

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that was a great experience I think and for me I would have to say even with

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him off claims work and the way how we address that and when we talk for the do piece how to show it that really I think

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it changed completely for me the way how I would fill my next project yeah

Halinas Favorite Pieces

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given that you spent so much intimate time with the patients was there is

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there a particular series or piece or that you formed a really strong relationship with during the during the

24:31

process of that yeah I mean there are there are I couldn’t pick one but of

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course the ten largest are the most

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impressive ones of course but I like for example from the ten largest I like

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number five because I think this is really this I can connect with that completely and this is one that you

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don’t they are not showing very often it has this big big flower and it looks like a hippie painting it looks like I

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remembered me of the time when I was born because I was born seventy five so I really like I think oh she could have

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painted that in this year I mean it was even way before that but this one I can

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connect and then I love I have to say I love her aqua I know you’re saying watercolors the watercolors they not all

25:26

of them have a house have been shown and I will do I will put them some of them

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at the bonus track our third DVD because I think you really need to have the closer look to the to the watercolors

25:39

she did those are also painting something you have to look twice the three times then you see something and

25:47

even the simplest of her of her paintings I love for example one of the

25:54

Aquila rods I’m showing this also it’s just dark blue and you have a golden chain coming you know from the universe

26:01

and it’s just nothing this is one of my favorites because it says so much you could even go back to

26:07

the to the Greeks to the antiques where because you have that also I don’t know

26:12

exactly sukar test or someone they talk about this golden chain that the cosmos where you have all the wisdom and she’s

26:20

just putting it in such a simple way and it looks perfect to me yeah that’s very

Working on Beyond the Visible

26:29

beautiful so how does working on this film you mentioned that you know

26:35

photographing and and shooting the the work will affect how you work on your

26:41

next project or on an upcoming or in the future how has taking this really

26:46

intimate dive into an artist’s work and and presenting it like this is it

26:51

affected you as an artist working in the world of film yeah oh I would say a lot

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I mean not just in in the way of film or in the world of film because I’m I’m

27:05

always saying I had the most meaningful five years of my life and it’s

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completely clear that I can’t go now less than that

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we’re just quite and yeah quite in challenge but I think no it was really

27:24

very very important for me to do this film because I think and that was I think that the most important yeah the

27:33

most important thing about Hilma of klain’s Berg is the message or I don’t like the word message but the

27:38

significance she has something significant to say and it is not about her she is not saying I have done that

27:46

and you should look how great I I have done that but she’s saying you she at

27:53

one point she’s she’s mentioning this work is important for humankind and this

27:59

is something she meant in a very humble way because she said you know this is something that is given to me by

28:05

whatever whoever whatever fantasy creativity and it came out but it’s

28:11

important for you and that’s how I felt when I was diving into that so it is something that affects affected me very

28:17

much but more like a big like a memory it’s something that remembers me of what

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is important in life and that is something that I include very much and but of course as an artist

28:30

as well as a director as I said so and the way I look at things probably or I would probably choose now what am I

28:37

going to show in this scene or whatever I would probably choose stiffen things yeah well that’s amazing yeah that’s

Whats next

28:44

yeah it’s it’s a beautiful experience to take with you then forward what what

28:50

then are you working on now actually yeah I have more projects and I’m

28:59

actually not to do a film actually about a German artist again an artist but she

29:05

was also a scientist but back in the 17th century but this is going to be a

29:10

fiction feature form and but actually since we have this crazy times right now

29:18

I’m reading a lot of Henry David Thoreau [Laughter]

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I have to say probably this is I don’t know this is my task to do but I think

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he is important to reread right now a very independent person that are very

29:36

clear mind and I think this I’m actually looking now for I like biographies that

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doesn’t look like others it doesn’t matter if it’s a woman or a man you know it doesn’t matter but I like if people

29:50

have really followed their own path because I think it is a bit of a lie

29:56

when people think or everybody says you have to follow your own path but I see

30:01

that 90% of the people don’t and I’m very interested in the biographies that

30:06

people do because why do you have to do everything like everybody else of course your questions then everybody questions

30:13

you but in the end you have done your way and I think that is the also one

30:19

very important point about Hilma of plains life I think this has been a very

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very successful life because she did it like she wanted to do it and I and she

30:30

Pony she look she looks even at her photographs very content and that’s the

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best how it can get I think that’s a perfect summary of the film thank you so much for taking time

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out to speak with us this week did you have anything you wanted to add before we everybody joy and discover your mouth

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Clint and maybe even some personal aspects about your own life so I wish

31:02

everybody joy watching it yeah thank you

31:09

again the film is beyond the visible Hilma off Clint it is screening in our virtual cinema at art gallery of

31:15

Hamilton calm until May 1st it will be also screening at several other virtual

31:22

cinemas this film is very important to see and I

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hope everyone sees it I wanted to quickly thank sight guys films and Kino now as well for helping organize this

31:33

conversation and of course to you Halina thanks again thank you

31:46

you

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