Storyline
From acclaimed director Jos Stelling (THE POINTSMAN, THE ILLUSIONIST, THE FLYING DUTCHMAN) comes THE GIRL AND DEATH, Winner of Best Picture at the Netherlands Film Festival.
THE GIRL AND DEATH is a story about the impossible love between Nicolai and the courtesan Elise; a love that is obstructed by materialism, wealth, and the threat of death. In Russia of the post-WWII era, aging doctor Nicolai returns to an old, abandoned hotel, the place where he first met his great love 50 years ago, and relives his romantic tragedy, a tragedy that happens in the late nineteenth century, and embodies the end of an era and the vibrant hopes and life of both its young couple and of a new world. The hotel still bears the traces of its impressive past. Eventually, it becomes clear why Nicolai has really returned… As ever, Stelling’s unique cinema is based on idiosyncratic humor, stunning images and large emotions. This is a film about time that seems to exist miraculously outside of time…
Leitmotifs: Sehnsucht, Chekhov, Pushkin and THE LONG GOODBYE.
Coming Soon to a theatre near you!
Currently booked with The Girl and Death:
Cinema Village, New York, NY: Opens April 25, 2014
Music Hall – Laemmle, Los Angeles, CA: Opens May 23, 2014
Palm Theatre, San Luis Obispo, CA: Opens June 7, 2014
Movies at the Museum – Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME: Opens June 27, 2014
Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville, ME: Opens July 4, 2014
Cinematheque – Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH: Opens November 30, 2014
The Screen, Santa Fe, NM: Opens January 16, 2015
Trailer
Press Kit
The link above will take you to the Contact page of the film's web site. Once there, select the UK flag in the bottom right corner for the English version of the Contact page, which will provide the link to download the press kit.
About the Director
Jos Stelling (1945, Utrecht) developed a great passion for film during his youth, spent at a Catholic boarding school, where French-speaking Wallonian monks analysed cinema classics as part of the curriculum. After boarding school, he experimented with filmmaking and, in the absence of a film academy, taught himself the art. His debut film, MARIKEN VAN NIEUMEGHEN, appeared in 1974 (based on a medieval miracle play). The film was selected for the competition at the Cannes film festival.
Alongside filmmaking, he began running his own film theatre, Springhaver (1978). In 2004 (without subsidy), he opened the Louis Hartlooper Complex, a cinema complex housed in an award-winning renovation of a former police station. This exceptional art house complex was quickly established as a major cultural centre in Utrecht. In 1981, he launched the film festival "The Dutch Film Days," of which he was chair and (once) director until 1991. Now known as the "Netherlands Film Festival" (NFF) it is today one of the largest film events in the Netherlands.
Jos Stelling has won many awards for his films and his oeuvre at film festivals in the Netherlands and internationally (including four Golden Calves, A Rose d'Or, two Golden Gryphons, etc.). He is also frequently asked to sit on juries (or chair them). He has received many honours for his contributions to filmmaking, including in Utrecht, St. Petersburg, Riga, Gyor (Hungary), Batumi (Georgia), Setúbal (Portugal), Prague (Czech film Clubs), Yerevan, Zerkalo (Russia), Amersfoort and Maine (USA). He was the "patron" of Cinedays (2003), a European cinema project in London, Brussels and Rome. In 2010, he was awarded the honorary title "Professor" at the Armenian University and a cinema has been named after him in the Ukraine. In 2005, he celebrated his 60th birthday at the home of Sergei Paradjanov.
Stelling feels most at home as a filmmaker in Russia and Italy, with L'arte della vita, the Italian sense of the theatrical, one on hand, and the Russian melancholy of Sehnsucht on the other. In Eastern Europe in particular, Jos Stelling is seen as a major film auteur. Russian critics believe that his Calvinist traits, his visual emotionality, and his surrealist humour are particularly appreciated by Eastern Europeans.
VISION: Film (like the other arts) has everything to do with the flow between the polarities (the magnetic field). This can be between man and woman, past and present, day and night, etc. It is the realm of "desire," "seduction," but also of "revenge" and "hate." In the final analysis, there is also the field of tension between the film itself and the audience: in this sense, film is only half the product. The filmmaker uses all means at his disposal to attract a certain audience to him. Watching a film is all about the art of (visual) association. Minimal dialogue allows the viewer to watch better.