Fred Kelemen: Frost

Fred Kelemen, Frost, 1997. © the artist

Frost is a landmark European film, cementing Kelemen as an inheritor of Fassbinder and Herzog. This three-hour epic 16mm film focuses on a mother and son fleeing her abusive husband in Berlin and wandering the former East Germany seeking a town that has long since vanished. Set during a sunless Christmas, Frost slowly unfolds during their one-week odyssey across glacial landscapes, towards peace.

Dir. Fred Kelemen, 201mins + Q&A, 1997

One of the boldest German filmmakers of the last 20-years, critic Susan Sontag compared Kelemen’s “urgently relevant” work to Sokurov and collaborator Bela Tarr. He garnered attention for his 1990s trilogy – Fate, Frost and Nightfall.

Believing in “time and not in speed”, meditations on human dissolution, cruelty and loneliness unfold at somnambulant pace. Set amongst Europe’s late-capitalist underclass of the unemployed and dispossessed, he captures nocturnal urban low-life with beauty.

Kelemen is present throughout the weekend to introduce and discuss his work, in conversation with film critic Jonathan Romney.

Part of Slow Cinema Weekend

Make sure you don’t miss anything this weekend, buy a Slow Cinema Pass