Kurt Kren

Kurt Kren

Born: September 20, 1929
Died: June 23, 1998
in Wien, Austria
Kurt Kren was born in 1929 in Vienna, Austria from a Jewish father and a German mother. From 1939 till the end of World War II, Kren lived in Rotterdam, where he was sent to with one of the Children's Transports. In 1947 Kren returned to Vienna, and his father provided him a job at the National Bank.

He began making films in 1957. 2/60 48 Köpfe Aus Dem Szondi -Test (1960) was his first serial film and 3/60 Bäume Im Herbst (1960) confirmed this structural orientation. He realized in the 1960s his most famous films with the Viennese actionists, where his skill of short film blossomed. In 1966, he took part in the « Destruction in Art Symposium » organized by Metzger in London. In 1968 he visited the USA for the first time, showing his films in New York and St. Louis. This very year he became a founder of the Austria Filmmakers Cooperative. After a participation in a happening "Kunst und Revolution" ("Art and Revolution") at the University of Vienna in 1968, Kren's films were confiscated and he was fired from the National Bank. He participated in 1970 in the International Underground Film Festival (London) and in 1971, in the Cannes Film Festival. He then moved to Cologne for five years. Retrospectives were set up by the London National Film Theatre in 1976 and the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1979. He was also involved in the Dokumenta 6 of Kassel in 1977.

From 1978 to 1989, Kren lived in the USA and presented lectures for universities and schools. He did many jobs such as security officer in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Within this period he made his bad home movies as he used to call them inspired by his travels across the country. He finally returned to his native Vienna in 1990. He died from pneumonia in Vienna in 1998.

Movies for Kurt Kren...

Becoming Otto
Title: Becoming Otto
Released: June 1, 2010
Type: Movie
A portrait of the Austrian avant-garde artist Otto Mühl/Muehl (1925-2013), whose work combined sex, violence, gastronomy and bodily effluence with unbridled abandon.
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Birth of a Nation
Title: Birth of a Nation
Character: Self
Released: August 6, 1997
Type: Movie
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.
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Homage to Kurt Kren
Title: Homage to Kurt Kren
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
A homage to the Austrian experimental filmmaker Kurt Kren, his two films "1000 Years of Cinema" and "Snapspots" and his way of working; and that with a slight wink.
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Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, Part 3
Title: Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, Part 3
Released: January 1, 1993
Type: Movie
On the 28th of October 1884 Daniel Paul Schreber, candidate of the National Liberal Party in Chemnitz, suffered a heavy defeat at the elections of the German Reichstag. He was taken up in the mental clinic of the Leipzig University soon afterwards. To his rehabilition he wrote an extensive piece of work, "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), which was published in 1903 and led to his temporary dismissal. Hereby Schreber became the most quoted psychiatric patient in scientific literature. The third part was realized by Peter Tscherkassy based on a concept by Ernst Schmidt Jr.
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Home Movies 1971-81
Title: Home Movies 1971-81
Released: January 1, 1985
Type: Movie
Home movies shot on Super 8mm by W+B Hein over 10 years.
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Exit... But No Panic
Title: Exit... But No Panic
Character: voyeur
Released: January 1, 1980
Type: Movie
A guy having sex with a woman on a rooftop – just to get her coffee-machine.
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36/78: Rischart
Title: 36/78: Rischart
Released: January 1, 1978
Type: Movie
Hans-Peter Hochenrath and Birgit Hein made a documentary film about me for the Saarland Network and wanted me to make a self-portrait. Instead of pointing the camera lens away from myself, I pointed it toward myself. I rewound the film over and over again so that multiple exposures were produced, while I was repeatedly fading in and out.
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29/73 Ready-Made
Title: 29/73 Ready-Made
Character: Himself
Released: September 11, 1973
Type: Movie
In a TV film about the film Casablanca, Kren is meant to read aloud three letters that Groucho Marx wrote to Warner Bros., because they wanted to take legal action against him over A Night in Casablanca. The recorded material could not be used on television and was meant to be destroyed. Kren found it and showed it uncut with its repetitions.
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Portrait: Kurt Kren
Title: Portrait: Kurt Kren
Character: Himself
Released: September 19, 1970
Type: Movie
"This film is an attempt in focusing. I visited Kurt Kren in Vienna. (Kurt Kren is considered to be the father of the European underground film.) Kurt Showed me lots of documents, papers and letters, all about the fights he had with many restaurant owners in Vienna. But the film I made is not about these fights; I tried to focus on the eye of the hurricane, the eye of Kurt Kren. Is this Kurt Kren or isn't it?" (HHK)
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Sodoma
Title: Sodoma
Released: April 5, 1970
Type: Movie
The Austrian avant-gardist Otto Muehl may well be the most scandalous filmmaker to ever work in cinema, and Sodoma stands as his most famous work. This creation takes the experiments a bit further down the road.
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Porträtfilm: Kurt Kren
Title: Porträtfilm: Kurt Kren
Character: Himself
Released: January 1, 1969
Type: Movie
Ludwig Schönherr | Federal Republic of Germany | 1969 | 18 fps | 3'25" | silent
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10c/65: Brus wishes his Christmas on you
Title: 10c/65: Brus wishes his Christmas on you
Character: himself
Released: January 1, 1965
Type: Movie
A kind of home movie made in Brus' apartment. Brus' Christmas wishes can be seen on a poster which he painted and which he holds for a short time in front of the camera.