Photo
Why is Mr W. Laughing?
Photo
Why is Mr W. Laughing?
Photo
Why is Mr W. Laughing?
Photo
Why is Mr W. Laughing?
Photo
Why is Mr W. Laughing?
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Age ratings
universal
Production Company
Hamburg
Funded by
Friedensallee 14-16
22765 Hamburg
22765 Hamburg
Rosenthalerstr. 40/41
10178 Berlin-Mitte
10178 Berlin
10178 Berlin
Supported by
Herzog-Wilhelm-Str. 16
80331 München
80331 München
Why is Mr W. Laughing?
Synopsis
WHY IS MR W. LAUGHING? is a portrait of three members of an atelier community of artists with different disabilities.Questioning the usual asymmetry of inclusion (meaning that often there is just a monologue about and not a dialogue with the persons concerned), the film is a cinematic experiment that politicizes boundary-practices in its form and content: Rather than making a film about inclusion, the film itself was produced inclusively.
On an open collaborative journey through the pictorial worlds of the three artists, a focus was set on their aesthetic obsessions and perspectives through their own videography. Their spontaneous and sometimes gratuitous imagery isn’t organized by a boosted ego at its center but displays subjectivity as social experience in space.
As a result of the collaborative approach, the film is an eclectic mix of materials and techniques, interview situations interwoven with observational episodes, auto-fiction and performance, home videos of the protagonists and their own musical compositions.
The juxtaposition of life and art doesn’t apply for the three who are artists in order to be citizens. Art for them is not a breakaway dream from normality, like for most neurotypical artists, but the quintessence of bourgeois work that enables them to participate in society, to form a community in mutual solidarity.
This is one of the many realizations that occurred during the work on this film, -that most ideas about disability and art brut are romanticizing or excluding misconceptions.
Cast & Crew
- Director
- Director of photography
- Protagonist
- Editor (Cut)
- Sound
- Compositing
- Sound Design
- Original Score
Awards
This Human World
2017 - Ethnocineca Filfestival
2017 - Nomination in Category / Section: Excellence in Visual Anthropology (EVA Award) Golden Apricot Filmfestival
2017 - filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Schwerin
2017 - Near Nazareth Festival
2017 - Internationales Filmfest Emden | Norderney
2017 - OpenEyes Filmfest Marburg
2017 - Price in Category / Section: Bester Dokumentarfilm Fünf Seen Internationales Filmfestival
2017 - Nafa Film Festival
2017 - Kunstgriff Filmfest
2017 - Price in Category / Section: 1. Preis "Bester Film" (Publikumspreis) & 2. Preis "Bester Film" (Jurypreis) Document 9 - International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Glasgow
2017 - "One With A Movie Camera" International Ethnographic Film Festival
2017 - Trento Filmfestival
2018 - Docademia Documentary Film Festival
2018 - ETHNOFEST-Athens International Ethnographic Film Festival
2018 - Age ratings
universal
Production Company
Hamburg
Funded by
Friedensallee 14-16
22765 Hamburg
22765 Hamburg
Rosenthalerstr. 40/41
10178 Berlin-Mitte
10178 Berlin
10178 Berlin
Supported by
Herzog-Wilhelm-Str. 16
80331 München
80331 München
