Testimony
(Feature Documentary - In Production)
Synopsis
After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Razvan Georgescu, the director of the film decides to undertake a voyage tracing the thin line between life and death, visiting artists who are terminally ill or who have been working on their final work of art in the hope that it will outlive or even save them. How does their work change when faced with mortality; how does one prepare for the final journey; what remains when you are gone?! The film discovers beauty in the face of one of the last social taboos, death. TESTIMONY is a film about the healing qualities of art. A roadmovie full of twists and turns but without a predetermined ending. TESTIMONY is not about watching the body surrender to disease, it is a film about vibrant life before death. It accompanies artists from around the world right until they finish their project or until they leave. Protagonists: Jorg Immendorf, Bill Viola, Harold Pinter, William Finn. Locations: Venice, New York, Timisoara, Los Angeles, Prague.
Trailer
Bios
Jorg Immendorff
(Died during the filming)
Born in Bleckede, Germany on June 14, 1945.
Immendorff studied art at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf, but was expelled for his
political and neo-dadaist actions. Following his expuslsion, he taught at a public school
for twelve years and, later, as a free artist with visiting professorships all over Europe.
Finally, in 1996, he gained a professorship at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf, the very
school that once expelled him.
His paintings have been influenced by the surrealist movement, using heavy symbolism
to express his political sentiments. His most well known paintings are from the series
Cafe Deutschland, a series of sixteen paintings, begun in 1977, in which people at a disco
symbolize the tensions between East and West Germany. He has also made some ironic
artistic comments on his own profession, using "painter monkeys" to poke fun at the art
business; one of his first acclaimed works was even called, "Stop Painting!"
In 1997, he won the coveted MARCO prize of the Museum of Contemporary Art in
Monterrey, Mexico. The following year, he won the Merit Medal of the Federal
Republic of Germany. A favorite painter of former German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroder, he was chosen by Schroder himself to paint the politician's official portrait.
Immendorff painted the Chancellor in a classical leader pose, in the colors of the German
flag, and surrounded him with little monkeys.
Late in his life, in 2003, Immendroff was arrested in a Dusseldorf hotel with seven
prostitutes and an amount of cocaine later deemed in excess of an amount appropriate for
individual use. His punishment, however, was light (11 months probation and a 150,000
Euro fine) due to his extensive cooperation and his ongoing battle with ALS (Lou
Gehrig's Disease), a terminal illness with which he was diagnosed in 1998.
In November of 2005, he was forced to receive a tracheotomy to help him breath and, by
2006, he was wheelchair-bound and unable to paint (formerly, he switched from his left
to right hand). To finish his last paintings, he resorted to instructing his
assistants. On May 27, 2007, he died in Dusseldorf at the age of 61.
Bill Viola
Born on January 25, 1951, and raised in Queens and Westbury, New York.
Viola went to public school in Flushing, where he was the captain of the TV Squad, and
later attended Syracuse University, where he studied video art in the Experimental
Studios of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. After graduating, he worked as a
video technician at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse and later, from 1973 to 1980,
studied and performed with composer David Tudor in the music group "Rainforest" (later
renamed "Composers Inside Electronics"). He also worked in various experimental
video studios, spending time in Florence and New York. During that time, he traveled to
Indonesia to record traditional performing arts.
He was invited, in 1977, to show his work at La Trobe University in Melbourne,
Australia by the Cultural Arts Director, Kira Perov. Viola and Perov later married,
forming a lifelong collaboration in both work and travel. In 1980, they lived in Japan for
a year-and-a-half long fellowship in which they studied Buddhism with Zen Master
Daien Tanaka.
Viola's life is a list of achievements: in 1983, he became an instructor in Advanced Video
at the California Insitute of the Arts; in 1995, he represented the United States at the 46
thVenice Biennale; in 1997, he was honored with a 25-year retrospective of his work that
was organized and toured internationally by the Whitney Museum of American Art; in
1998, he was the Getty Scholar-in-residence at The Getty Research Institute in LA; in
2000, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Known for his highly emotional video art - often portraying intense reactions with no
reference to their cause - Viola has tackled issues ranging from birth, death, love and
spirituality, drawing on his experience with the traditions of Zen Buddhism, Christian
Mysticism and Islamic Sufism. He has shown, among other places, in London's National
Gallery, Berlin's Guggenheim, New York's Guggenheim, The Whitney Museum of
American Art, LA's Getty and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, earning a place
among the most important and well-known contemporary artists.
William Finn
Born on February 28, 1952 in Boston and raised in Natick, Massachusetts. Finn attended
Williams College, where he majored in music.
A composer and lyricist, Finn's lyrics are often very autobiographical. Among other
things, he writes on being gay and Jewish in the modern-day U.S., focusing on issues
such as "conflict, loyalty, family, belonging, sickness, healing and loss". He is most well
known for his trilogy of short, off-Broadway musicals: In Trousers, March of the
Falsettos and Falsettoland. The trilogy features a character named Marvin who
confronts his homosexuality and leaves his wife for his boyfriend, watches as his ex-wife
and psychiatrist fall in love, grows closer to his son, loses his boyfriend to AIDS and,
finally, comes to fully accept himself. On April 29, 1992, Falsettos, a combination of the
latter two parts of the trilogy, opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theater.
Finn has had two musical revues of his work produced in the last decade; one of which,
Elegies: A Song Cycle, is a collection of songs Finn composed in honor of the victims of
the September 11 attacks.
Now living in New York City with his partner, Finn is an Adjunct Faculty
Composer/Lyricist at New York University. He is currently working on the music and
lyrics for The Royal Family of Broadway, which tells the story of a girl, descending from
a prominent family of Broadway actors, who is thinking of leaving the stage in favor of
marriage.
Helmut Dubiel
Born in 1946, Dubiel studied German literature and philosophy at the Universities of
Bielefeld and Bochum.
Coming of age in the theory-laden atmosphere of German academia in the late 60s and
early 70, Dubiel developed a distanced approach in his writing, even when dealing with
deeply personal issues. Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the age of 46 (far younger
than is usual for the disease), Dubiel tackles the issue in his work, Deep within the Brain,
a book that combines personal experience with sociological reflection. There is no self-
pity in his account of the illness. Rather, he describes his experience matter-of-factly,
using what has happened to him to draw conclusions on more general trends and
phenomena in society.
After being diagnosed with the disease, Dubiel turned down a prestigious post in the
German sociological community in favor of more relaxed teaching positions at UC
Berkeley and later at New York University.
Eventually returning to Germany, Dubiel underwent surgery to combat his worsening
condition. What followed was a series of improvements and declines that Dubiel found
frustrating and demoralizing. Ultimately, Dubiel managed to make peace with his
condition and is now living with it to the best of his ability.
Peter Jecza
Born on October 16, 1939 in Romania. Jecza'a childhood was shaped by the war, during
which he and his family were forced to subsist on very little while his father served on
the front line.
Later, Jecza attended a high school specializing in the education of young artists. This
focused education helped him earn a place at the exclusive art school, Klaus Castle in
Timisoara. Jecza came to Timisoara with nothing, not even a place to stay; he spent his
first night in a train station. He found a place for himself in a student hostel, where he
stayed for two years before moving to a studio provided by the Romanian Artists
Federation: a small room, with no kitchen or bathroom, where he stayed for seven years.
During this time, he married a woman named Klari, also an artist studying at Klaus
Castle.
In 1970, under the tutelage of rebellious teachers at Klaus Castle, Jecza began to work
with bronze (which was still illegal for artistic use in impoverished Romania). It was his
work with bronze that caught the eye of the artistic community when, in 1970, Uwe
Niemeyer, a German art dealer, purchased some of Jecza's work for show in Germany.
In spite of the fact that Jecza was beginning to make a name for himself abroad, he was
only rarely able to travel outside of Romania, due to its strict travel laws.
In 1987, Jecza's child, Andi, was born. It was an emotionally tense time in which the joy
of having a new child was only tempered by the anxiety of living under a repressive and
controlling government. Then, on October 11, 1988, he suffered a coronary. With this
shock, things became clearer for Jecza, and his work intensified.
He now lives a quiet life in Romania, working and spending time with his family. "We
withdrew ourselves into our fortress," he explains, transforming his home into a
"repository for my works, into a museum and a meeting place for good friends".
Vaclav Havel
Born on October 5, 1936 in Prague and raised in a well-known intellectual family with
close ties to the cultural and political life of Czechoslovakia.
Because Havel's family was involved with the Czech communist government, he was
only able to attend primary school for the small term required by the state and was forced
to end his formal education in 1951 at the age of fifteen. In the early 50s, he entered into
a four-year apprenticeship as a chemical laboratory assistant while taking night classes in
an effort to complete his secondary education (completed in 1954).
After completing military service in 1959, he worked as a stagehand in Prague while
studying drama through correspondence at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of
Performing Arts in Prague. His first publicly performed full-length play, The Garden
Party (1963), was presented in a season of Theatre of the Absurd at the Balustrade. It
won him international acclaim.
After the Prague Spring in 1968, he was banned from the theatre. Becoming more active
in politics, he penned the Charter 77 Manifesto in response to unlawful imprisonments.
The manifesto got Havel himself thrown in jail, however, and, amidst several stays in
prison, served as much as four years in one sitting.
A supporter of non-violent resistance, he became a leading figure in the Velvet
Revolution of 1989, the bloodless end of communism in Czechoslovakia. For his role, he
was awarded The International Gandhi Peace Prize by the Government of India. At the
peak of his popularity, he was elected President of Czechoslovakia by unanimous vote on
December 29, 1989. He would be the last President of Czechoslovakia, and the first
President of the Czech Republic.
Havel's first play since his presidency, Leaving, based partly on King Lear, is tentatively
scheduled to premiere at the National Theater of Prague in June 2008.
Harold Pinter
Born on October 10, 1930 in the London Borough of Hackney to English Jews of
Eastern-European descent.
Pinter's childhood was interrupted by war; he was forced to evacuate from London to
Cornwall and Reading during the sustained bombing of the city by Nazi Germany; his
memory of this time is of "loneliness, bewilderment, separation and loss". Later, he
attended the Hackney Downs Grammar School, where he formed several lifelong
friendships and a strong belief in the power of male friendship. Afterward, he attended
the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for two terms. His education was interrupted,
however, when he was called up for National Service. He registered as a conscientious
objector and, after bring brought to trial twice, was ultimately fined for his refusal to
serve.
Pinter began his theatrical career in the mid-1950s as an actor, using the stage name,
David Baron. Going on to write (for which he gained his acclaim), he authored 29 stage
plays, 26 screenplays, many dramatic sketches and radio and TV plays, poetry, short
fiction, a novel, and a plethora of essays, speeches and letters. He is best known for his
plays The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and
Betrayal (1978), each of which was later adapted to film. He has also written several
screenplay adaptations of preexisting novels, including The Trial in 1993.
Though recognized first and foremost for his dramas, often featuring conflict between
characters competing for "verbal and territorial dominance and for their own remembered
versions of the past", Pinter has also made a name for himself as a political commentator
with a decidedly Leftist, anti-American bend, though he has been careful to point out that
his disappointment is with the U.S. Government; not its people.
In 2005, he was honored with a Nobel Prize in Literature, described by the Swedish
Academy as "the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20
th century". Though his health has been failing as of late, he continues to work, acting in
the October 2007, critically acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's one-man play
Krapp's Last Tape during the 50 th anniversary season of the Royal Court. He also
continues to write poetry, give interviews and speak out about the current political
environment.
Heddy Honigmann
Born in Lima, Peru in 1951 to parents of Polish, Jewish origin. Her family moved from
Poland to Peru just one month before the German invasion; every family member that
remained behind was killed.
In 1978, Honigmann left Peru due to the fact that there was no film academy in Lima.
From there, she traveled to Israel, Spain, France and finally stopped in Rome, where she
attended film school.
A documentary filmmaker interested in suffering and loss, she made a name for herself
examining the effects that war has had on soldiers and families in Crazy (1999), in which
Dutch UN Peacekeepers recount their experiences in war-torn nations like Bosnia and
Rwanda, and in Good Husband, Dear Son (2001), in which women who lost their
husbands and sons in a 1992 massacre during the Yugoslav Civil War reminisce about
their loved ones.
Recently, she won Best Film at the 2007 Navarra International Documentary Film
Festival for Forever, an examination of the cultural and personal atmosphere surrounding
the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The award came in a unanimous decision from a
jury consisting of Mikhail Vartnov, Yael Perlov, Margarita de la Vega-Hurtado, Jaime
Pena and Fernando Pagola.
Remus Razvan
Father to the filmmaker, Razvan, a composer, is crafting the score for Testimony. He
believes that his work on this film may be his last as a composer.
