North American Premiere
A decade after her passing, the emotive brilliance of iconic Tanztheater choreographer Pina Bausch lives on through a new generation of performers as they make her movement vocabulary their own, under the guidance of original members of her cast. Director Florian Heinzen-Ziob’s stunning documentary takes us behind the scenes as the ballet ensemble of the Semperoper in Dresden, Germany rehearses Pina’s poignant dance-opera Iphigenia in Tauris. Meanwhile, dancers from fourteen African countries gather at the École des Sables in Senegal to breathe new life into Pina’s visceral reimagining of The Rite of Spring.
Through intimately shot interviews and rehearsal footage, the performers share what “dancing Pina” means to them: the fusion of personal experience and choreography; learning to fully inhabit the body that one has; and facilitating a true encounter with the self through performance. Bolstered by gorgeous cinematography both onstage and on the shore of Toubab Dialaw, Senegal, the end results are achingly beautiful. A journey of fascinating insights into the lives of dancers and the expressive power of movement.
Media Partner
Community Partner
Malou Airaudo, Clémentine Deluy, Josephine Ann Endicott, Jorge Puerta Armenta, Sangeun Lee, Courtney Richardson
Germany
2022
In English, French, German, and Portuguese with English subtitles
Gender or Sexual Discrimination
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
A tense mystery and an act of radical protest, this film tells the story of an Iranian lawyer who’s lost his handgun and knows someone in his family took it. With every moment, his wife and daughters grow more afraid of him–yet none of them will confess…
Every Little Thing
If you thought Flow was an emotional rollercoaster, wait til you meet Cactus and Wasabi, baby hummingbirds fighting for their lives under the loving care of hummingbird-whisperer Terry Masear, an Angelino who makes it her mission to nurse injured birds.
Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat
In January 1961, seven months after Congolese independence, Patrice Lumumba is assassinated. In excavating the history of this political murder, this essay-film traces the complex and unlikely intersections of American jazz and Cold War geopolitics.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Robert Mulligan's beloved film adaptation of Harper Lee's novel is the tale of a white lawyer, Atticus Finch, defending an innocent black man accused of rape in a small southern town in the 1930s. As selected by VIFF Premium member Margot Pratt.
Universal Language
In a wintery, Farsi-speaking city that’s equal measures Winnipeg and Tehran, storylines entangle and the concepts of space, time, and identity grow increasingly opaque. Inventive and absurd, Rankin's poetic fable reminds us that Winnipeg is a wonderland. Rated: G
Credits
Producer
Florian Heinzen-Ziob, Georg Heinzen
Screenwriter
Florian Heinzen-Ziob
Cinematography
Enno Endlicher
Editor
Florian Heinzen-Ziob
Director
Florian Heinzen-Ziob
Born 1984 in Düsseldorf, Germany, Florian Heinzen-Ziob is a freelance director, producer, and co-founder of the production company Fontäne Film. He studied media arts and film directing at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. As an author, director, and producer, he made the feature-length documentaries Original Copy (2015), German Class (2018), and Dancing Pina. His films have been shown at over a hundred film festivals worldwide, including International Film Festival Rotterdam, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Sheffield DocFest, and DOK.fest Munich, and have received several awards. He lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
Filmography: Original Copy (2015); German Class (2018)