BARBARA MORGENSTERN UND DIE LIEBE ZUR SACHE

Sabine Herpich | Germany | 2024 | 110’ | OV

Barbara Morgenstern, a bustling musician in the field of danceable electronic music with mischievous, profound lyrics and extensive theatre experience (including for Rimini Protokoll), has done everything differently for her latest album »In anderem Licht« and worked with analogue instruments and flesh-and-blood musicians. Documentary film director Sabine Herpich (KUNST KOMMT AUS DEM SCHNABEL WIE ER GEWACHSEN IST) accompanies the entire creation process, from the composition to the arrangement, the recordings in the studio and the necessary promotional steps for the album release to the tour, which is intended to literally bring the work to the people. Beautiful, fluidly narrated direct cinema that doesn’t dogmatically stick to observing, but also asks questions – audibly – in exactly the right places. The result is not only a meticulous (and in this sense analytical, i.e. instructive) depiction of production processes, but also a portrait of a band leader who couldn’t be any less bossy: Not since Wildenhahn’s film about John Cage have we seen a musical personality work in such a credibly non-hierarchical way and work so fruitfully with the principle of dialogue.