Special Programme "Meeting with Tilda"  

Cycling the Frame
 
In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle, accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. Starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate, hippie-like long-haired Tilda Swinton leads us on a journey through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment complexes. She recites poetry, stops by the lake to pick some flowers. The Wall is a constant presence, the oppressiveness. Tilda Swinton provocatively takes a “Polaroid” of an East German guard tower and waves the photo for the guards.

The Invisible Frame

Long-haired hippie-like Tilda Swinton has visited Western Germany in 1988. Yet unfamiliar artist was invited by Cynthia Beatt to film in a journey on bike by the Berlin Wall. After 21 years Tilda Swinton repeats the journey. But the wall is gone. And she herself cut the hair and became a famous actress, director and public intellectual. However, she is still open to the world with the same sensitivity. The different zeitgeist is felt through the encouters with passers-by. On her way, she stops to listen to street musicians, talks to people she passes. Riding this distance of 161 km. this time, the horizon is seen through both sides of the wall.

Cynthia Beatt

Cynthia Beatt (1949) was born in Jamaica and moved later to the Fiji Islands. She studied art in Britain and then traveled for a year through the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and India. She curated major retrospectives and is an actress and filmmaker. Beatt lives and works in Berlin since 1975.

Filmography

A House in Berlin (Ein Haus in Berlin, 2014)
The Party: Nature Morte (1991)
Description of an Island (Beschreibung einer Insel, 1979)