The Southwest Film Center will present two films this weekend by Hamburg, Germany-based, experimental director and artist Peter Sempel - a renowned documenter of the musicians, artists, filmmakers and poets of the European punk scene.
Sempel will be on hand for question and answer sessions following screenings of "Punk and Glory - Nina Hagen" and "Jonas in the Desert" Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Born in Hamburg in 1954, Sempel was raised in the Australian outback with no utilities and a kangaroo in the garden, according to his Web site. He said he was teased for being a German, so he tore the ear off a schoolmate and burned down part of the school. He returned to Germany in the late 1960s and since 1981, he has focused the majority of his attention on cinema, filming or photographing artists as diverse as Motorhead, Canned Heat, Alice Cooper and Berlin-based industrial/noise band EinstÅrzende Neubauten. Most of his work has centered around the anti-establishment ethos of Europe's music and art world.
"I often wonder why `they' always scream, shout and cry about pollution of nature and the world but hardly ever about pollution of mind and heart...," he writes on his Web site. "On the other hand Nike, Coca Cola, H&M, MTV, Hollywood, IBM, etc, etc... are handling it anyway, it seems."
For years, Sempel has lugged his films around the world, presenting them at film festivals, small theaters and discos.
Sempel's other film credits include 1998's "Dandy," in which Nick Cave and Nina Hagen obey the wishes of a mysterious department store coffee pot and 1991's "Just Visiting this Planet," an adventure spanning several continents in which music and dancing animals illustrate hope in the midst of world chaos. Sempel also did a feature film about Alan Ginsberg in 1998's "Hustler for Life."
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"Punk and Glory - Nina Hagen" was released in 1999, and is described as "a documentary psychomusic film." It follows scenes from musician Hagen's life, including her current public and private life, family and friends, as well as flashbacks to her past. The soundtrack ranges from punk and pop to Indian folk music.
"Jonas in the Desert," released in 1994, is a similar documentary of the life of fellow filmmaker and poet Jonas Mekas. The film includes appearances by Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese.
"Punk and Glory - Nina Hagen" will be shown Friday at 9 p.m., Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m.
"Jonas in the Desert" will run Friday at 6 p.m., Saturday at 9:30 p.m., and Sunday at 7 p.m.
The Southwest Film Center is in Room 2018 of the Center for the Performing Arts. For more information, call 277-5608.
