A resilient springboard, domestic appliances making music, lacerated walls, interspersed with a few snippets of words, blinking neon tubes, old office printers. The motto is to cut, contrast, dislocate, shake it well all the way through; in short: “rhythmise”. Whether the film creates specific accentuation or a kind of music diegetically or by means of filmic methods, rhythm appears on the screen in the most diverse facets – and, above all, one can’t imagine the world of short films without it.

Not least the animated film has expedited the rhythmic connection (to the point of amalgamation) of image and sound; however, “Rrrhythm in Pictures!” is about “rhythmising” with the help of graphic pictures. Memories automatically emerge – of dancing people or percussion orgies, of a stuck LP or seconds being counted down, of a pulsating heartbeat or a relentlessly ticking metronome. Tick, tack, tick, tack.

Objects being used for other purposes than originally intended, concise language, precise symphonies of pictures: the programme presents 13 films and concentrates on the various forms of rhythmic play in live-action films in which the sound and music are mostly created in the filmed world. But sometimes the noises also come from outside, the rhythm is born through the editing; and then once the sound is even omitted completely so that we are able to simply “feel” the rhythm of a playful tussle with our eyes.

So when is a film too slow? Or too fast? Trying to determine this is no mean feat – musicians and cutters alike would be able to tell you a thing or to about that! “Rrrhythm in Pictures!” is a programme for those who have rhythm flowing in their veins or want to find some – and those who enjoy just leisurely keeping time with their feet from time to time. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhythm!!!

Curators: Wiktoria Pelzer, Daniel Ebner; Advisor: Gerald Weber

Total length: 72 min