TRIBUTE 2026: EUROPEAN EIGHTIES

Curated this year by Diskollektiv – Andrey Arnold, Valerie Dirk, Iris Fraueneder, and Ulrike Wirth – the Crossing Europe Tribute embarks on a film-historical trip through the Western Europe of the 1980s.

 

Odyssey through Western Europe
There is no stopping the 1980s. While collective nostalgia for other decades may come and go, the one for the proverbial “eighties” tenaciously remains in the limelight of pop culture, being rediscovered by each and every generation. The accompanying fantasies are often fueled by the aesthetic reservoir of American film history. But what about European eighties cinema? Was it not as gaudy and vibrant? This historical program presents what makes the mythological space of the European Eighties – in the context of an odyssey through its capitalism-dominated West.

Milieus, hairdos, and emancipations
The background to this little retrospective is a two-fold amazement. The first one is: What, Chantal Akerman made a musical comedy? Also: Why have Akerman’s singing, dancing hairdressers from GOLDEN EIGHTIES not yet achieved cult status? Because evidently, the desire for consumerism (critique) and perms has not subsided.

The Tribute very gleefully caters to said desire. However, and unlike the yuppie adulation of many U.S. eighties retrotopias, it specifically spotlights the European middle-class milieus of that era, contemplating them from a primarily feminist perspective.

The setting of GOLDEN EIGHTIES, a department store with a boutique and hair salon, provides a linchpin appearing in different variations in all five films; of which only one is a musical, but (live) music, singing or theatrics play a role in all of them.

Another idea guiding the program was the desire to narrate key eighties issues like neoliberalism or the dismantling of the welfare state, as well as iconic characters like the “bra burner” or the “career woman” with the help of experimental debut features or the courageous re-orientations of established directors.

We found them in the living rooms of Black British Cinema, in a Dutch courtroom, in a sternly ruled queer-feminist pleasure villa in Hamburg – and on a car journey visiting the department stores of Switzerland. Despite all the heterogeneousness of the presented films, some of which absolutely do have niche cult status but are not considered canonic eighties cinema, our audience is invited to be surprised to find that these works are characteristic of the European Eighties. (Diskollektiv)


Films of the section:

BURNING AN ILLUSION (GB 1981)
Director: Menelik Shabazz, 106 min.
 
The Black women’s hairdresser – that site of cultural expression and social debate – makes a fitting backdrop to the opening titles of Menelik Shabazz's BURNING AN ILLUSION. The film centers on the personal and political awakening of Shabazz’s main characters Pat and Del and the circumstances in which they find themselves as a young Black couple in the London of the early 1980s. The film charts Pat’s political awakening into Black consciousness when she and those closest to her experience violence and discrimination on the streets of the capital. The film's narrative develops through Pat’s on/off relationship with Del and the changes in her attitude and physical appearance. (Pamela Crawford, migrantcinema.net)


Collections CINEMATEK © Chantal Akerman Foundation
GOLDEN EIGHTIES (FR/BE/CH 1986)
Director: Chantal Akerman, 96 min.
 
A zippy, brightly colored musical – rather like Jacques Demy on speed – which is a far cry from Akerman's earlier slow, serious examinations of women and their place. The setting is the enclosed world of a shopping mall: on one side Lili's hair salon, busy with excitable young shampoo girls; on the other a clothes boutique run by Monsieur Schwartz and wife Jeanne. Their son Robert lusts after Madonna-lookalike Lili, who shamelessly shifts between him and a lovelorn gangster ... Akerman breathlessly switches from one group to another, merging bustling set pieces with wistful solos, until somehow the threads come together in a celebration of tears for fears and rampant amour. (Time Out)


REISENDER KRIEGER DIRECTOR'S CUT / TRAVELLING WARRIOR DIRECTOR'S CUT (CH 1981/2008)
Director: Christian Schocher, 142 min.
 
Switzerland in a state of twilight: roads, construction sites, residential areas, rest stops, and concrete everywhere. Sales representative Krieger travels the country on behalf of the cosmetics company Blue Eyes, trying to sell its products in department stores and hair salons. Along the way, he meets a diverse range of people and strikes up conversations with them. Christian Schocher, longtime owner of a cinema in the Engadine region and director of a slim, incredibly fascinating work, has created a monumental double portrait: that of a man without a first name, traveling through Switzerland in a bad mood, and that of a country presented entirely in shades of gray. The plot is loosely based on Homer's “Odyssey”. (Zeughauskino, Berlin)


DE STILTE ROND CHRISTINE M. / A QUESTION OF SILENCE (NL 1982)
Director: Marleen Gorris, 96 min.
 
A QUESTION OF SILENCE is a brilliant work of quintessentially 80s feminist media. Showcasing women’s slow-burning rage beside the offenses and brush-offs of men, the film expresses frustration cathartic to the audience through its recognition. Controversial upon its release and still somewhat so now, QUESTION does not shy away from the most brutal application of its themes. It hinges on a murder – a gruesome murder, apparently senseless, by three women. These women are strangers to each other and kill a male shopkeeper. We follow a female psychiatrist as she interviews the women over several weeks to determine whether they are fit to stand trial. (Frances Maurer, filminquiry.com)


VERFÜHRUNG: DIE GRAUSAME FRAU / SEDUCTION: THE CRUEL WOMAN (DE 1985)
Director: Elfi Mikesch & Monika Treut, 88 min.
 
Wanda, a mysterious dominatrix, opens a gallery of S&M erotica. Being cruel is her profession. Justine, the innocent American, has to learn that passion is just another illusion. Mr. Mahrsch, a journalist, is granted an interview only after having practical experience. Only Caren, an eccentric businesswoman, and Wanda's lover, thinks she knows what life is all about. The film presents the world of masochistic lust as a performance of hidden desires. The rules are extremely severe and the game extremely cruel, but the participants know what they've agreed to. Both male and female characters function as archetypes in this closed universe that exists beyond psychosocial reality. (frameline.org)