Paracelsus
On the initiative of the magazine Panorama-cinéma and in partnership with the Goethe-Institut, we present a substantial cycle of around twenty screenings dedicated to the filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst. In addition to his legendary silent films (Loulou, La rue sans joie) and some new restorations, we have also unearthed several rarely shown films from our collections which testify to the richness of an all-out filmography, accompanying the tribulations of his time, for better or for worse. This major cycle is accompanied by a book co-published with Panorama-cinema, with the support of the Goethe-Institut.
A physician, alchemist, and spiritual guru, Paracelsus (1493-1541) was one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of science. And, like its subject, this 1943 film is shrouded in mystery, even though it was directed by one of the supreme stylists of the German cinema: G.W. Pabst. Werner Krauss (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) stars as the Swiss-born scientist, who faces the seemingly impossible task of protecting the German people from a coming plague, and calming a rising tide of mass hysteria.
Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Georg Wilhelm Pabst (1885 - 1967) was an Austrian director, screenwriter and producer. He started out as an actor and theater director, before becoming one of the most influential German-language filmmakers in the Weimar Republic.