Lutz Mommartz
For over five decades, experimental filmmaker Lutz Mommartz shaped the German film and art scene with a radically different understanding of film. Since the 1960s, he was active in Düsseldorf as a filmmaker and artist, and his work raised key questions about the authenticity of film and its relationship with the audience. He achieved his international breakthrough in 1967 at the Knokke Festival, when his film "Self-Shots" won an award. Parallel to his work as a municipal official, he was a motivator in the Düsseldorf art scene, for example, as co-founder of the legendary artists' bar Creamcheese, and was represented in numerous exhibitions such as documenta 4 (with his "Zweileinwandkino" (two-screen cinema) in 1968) and STRATEGY: GET ARTS (Edinburgh, 1970). He received the Silver Federal Film Prize in 1977 for "As if by Beckett" and in 1978 for "The Garden of Eden"
Mommartz stood for "the other cinema," beyond the mainstream, with the goal of establishing film as a means of artistic expression. In the 1970s, as part of the Düsseldorf Film Group, he campaigned for the institutional recognition of film in art. In 1975, he was appointed the first professor of film at the University of Fine Arts Münster (then an outpost of the Düsseldorf Art Academy) and headed the film class until 1999. In 2020, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf dedicated a retrospective to Mommartz's work. His works were most recently exhibited at the ZKM Karlsruhe and the Julia Stoschek Foundation. Lutz Mommartz is remembered as a pioneer of artistic film—uncomfortable, experimental, and ahead of his time.
Movies (57)
Margret’s Film
2007 · Director
Window to The Yard
1996 · Director
Painting
1996 · Director
Wall of Shadows
1993 · Director, Writer
Fear Under the Stars
1989 · Director
Four Little Pieces
1988 · Director
Slow Waltz
1987 · Director
Focus
1987 · Director, Producer
The Last Smoke
1986 · Director
Marble Always Remains Cool
1985 · Director
Dress
1985 · Director
Every Human is A Table, Only I Am A Chair
1983 · Director
Transit to Berlin
1983 · Director
Filming Operation
1982 · Director
Tango Through Germany
1981 · Director
Schattenkur
1979 · Director
Eddie and Lutz
1979 · Director
More Than Two
1978 · Director
The Garden of Eden
1977 · Director
As if by Beckett
1976 · Director, Writer, Editor, Camera Operator
Mambo
1975 · Producer
Die Schiller
1975 · Director
The Fair War 1525
1975 · Director
Wing Flapping
1975 · Director
The Fear at the Rhein
1974 · Director
Haircut
1974 · Director
Film Group Düsseldorf - Sketch
1972 · Director
The City of Düsseldorf is Very Beautiful
1972 · Director
Monuments
1972 · Director
The Beautiful Sigmar
1971 · Director
Most of My Friends Now Live in Berlin
1971 · Director
Inspection
1971 · Director
The Aggressive Brown Water Inside the Tubes of the Professors
1971 · Director
Old Age Porn
1970 · Director, Writer
Spanish Crime Story
1970 · Director
The Breath of Sheep
1970 · Director
Solidarity of Tenents
1970 · Director
Görreskeller und JETZT - Köln
1970 · Director
Spaniards Meeting in Essen
1970 · Director
Social Sculpture
1969 · Director
Overwhelmed
1969 · Director
400 m IFF
1969 · Director
Wählt ADF
1969 · Director
Teenage Art
1969 · Director
Way to the Neighbour
1968 · Director
Immatrikulation
1968 · Director, Writer
3 Glasses
1968 · Director
Two-Screen Cinema
1968 · Director
Railroad
1967 · Director
Markeneier
1967 · Director
Self Shots
1967 · Director
The Stairs
1967 · Director, Writer
The Finger
1967 · Director, Writer
Danceloop
1967 · Director, Writer
Up / Down
1967 · Director, Writer
Color Stripes
1967 · Director
Otto Piene's Studio Party
1966 · Director
TV shows (0)
No credits available.