The blood knights

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Movie
Original title The blood knights
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2003
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Douglas Wolfsperger
script Douglas Wolfsperger
production Ulli Pfau
music Hans-Jürgen Buchner ,
Haindling
camera Igor Luther
cut Götz Schuberth
occupation
  • Georg Baumeister
  • Josef Bendel
  • Nikolaus Dorner
  • Udo Harms
  • Jürgen Hohl
  • Othfried Linde
  • Stefan Müller
  • Franziska Schüle
  • Alois Weber

The Blood Knights is a documentary directed by Douglas Wolfsperger from the year 2003 . The cinema release in Germany was on September 30, 2004.

action

The film accompanies protagonists and observers of the blood kick in Weingarten , the largest equestrian procession in Europe with up to 3,000 riders and 30,000 pilgrims. Catholics from all over Upper Swabia take an active part in this procession. The film shows, among other things, a butcher and his family, a couple of beekeepers, a practicing Indian friend from Waldburg , the traditional researcher and museum founder Jürgen Hohl , a monastery brother and the abbot of the Weingarten monastery .

Wolfsperger uses ironic nuances to create a multi-faceted image of society that goes beyond popular piety and folklore and advances to existential questions about faith, partnership and death.

Press reviews

  • The Pope can wrap up. Against Blood Friday in the Upper Swabian vineyard, the Vatican ceremonies look downright miserable. “The Blood Knights”, a Catholic spectacle: a piece of archaicism in the middle of modernity, mysterious, twisted, quirky, banal, hilarious. ( Tagesspiegel , Christiane Peitz)
  • [...] the result of a study of souls and people that is rough and full of sadness, pretty and humorous. Wolfsperger compresses the blood step itself [...] onto its symbolism. He links the holy blood relic with gruesome realities: while the blood riders talk about the importance that the preserved blood of Christ has for their lives, the scenes of a slaughter are faded in. Blood as a symbol of protection and forgiveness unites with its secret reverse side: with cruelty and suffering. ( Schwäbische Zeitung , Harald Ruppert)
  • [...] Wolfsperger lets his characters tell their stories, their partly politically not particularly correct views go uncommented and completely refrains from making fun of them. His film is full of all conceivable forms of situation comedy, which, however, are never at the expense of the characters. ( Film service )
  • [...] staged with a touch of western romanticism. Director Douglas Wolfsperger mystifies tradition and customs with the means of the feature film. It's grotesque and entertaining. A truly successful portrait of a remarkable breed of people. ( BR - Kino Kino)
  • The foreign can be so close. For ethnographic films about the strange customs of exotic tribes [...], for example, Upper Swabia and the little town of Weingarten near Ravensburg ... a microcosm between the darkest Middle Ages and the brand new present ... Wolfsperger and his cameraman Igor Luther [...] demonstrate a sure instinct for the inconspicuous monstrosities. [...] The everyday and the unbelievable, the attractive and the repulsive, mutually intensify again and again into the absurdly comical. ( Süddeutsche Zeitung , HGPflaum)
  • The fact that the film turned out to be so homogeneous and breathtakingly lively that only feature films are otherwise determines the rank of Wolfsperger's work. ( Cine art )
  • There is hardly a German filmmaker who makes people speak as well as Douglas Wolfsperger. ( Südkurier , Tilmann P. Gangloff)
  • [...] beautifully photographed by cameraman Igor Luther and accompanied by music by Haindling alias Hans-Jürgen Buchner. ( Evening newspaper , Munich)

Festivals

  • 57th International Film Festival Locarno , world premiere on August 12, 2004 in the series "Semaine de la critique"
  • International Documentary Film Festival Leipzig , 19. – 24. October 2004
  • 17th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), 18. – 28. November 2004
  • German Film Festival, London, November 25th – 2nd December 2004
  • International Film Festival of India, Goa, November 29–9. December 2004
  • German Film Festival, Dublin, December 13, 2004
  • Würzburg film weekend, 20. – 23. January 2005

Web links