Gimme Shelter ( 1970, USA, 91 min.) from Albert & David Maysles is the landmark documentary about the tragically ill-fated Rolling Stones free concert at Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969. Only four months earlier, Woodstock defined the Love Generation; now it lay in ruins on a desolate racetrack six miles outside of San Francisco.
Before an estimated crowd of 300,000 people, the Stones headlined a free concert featuring Tina Turner, The Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and others. Concerned about security, the Stones asked members of outlaw biker gang The Hell's Angels to help maintain order. Instead, an atmosphere of fear and dread arose, leading ultimately to the stabbing death of a fan. What began as a flower-power love-in had degenerated into a near riot; frightened, confused faces wondering how the Love Generation could, in one swift, cold-blooded slash, became a generation of disillusionment and disappointment.
December 6, 1969: the day the Sixties died.
Tom Tykwer's Der Krieger + Die Kaiserin (2000, Germany, 135 min.)
Somewhere out there love is waiting...
They meet for the first time, after a horrible accident, underneath a truck. The sad and angry Bodo (Benno Fürmann), a small time criminal who is always running, from himself as well as the law, and Sissi (Franka Potente), a shy, quiet nurse who works in in a psychiatric clinic. Bodo saves Sissi's life, which is literally hanging by a thread, then disappears without trace. Obsessed by the Incident, Sissi sets out on a mission to find the mysterious stranger, and to discover whether their paths crossed through simple blind chance or the intricate mechanisms of destiny itself.
Entrance: € 5.50
No screening on Mondays
EXTRA
Seul Contre Tous (1998, France, 93 min.) from Gaspar Noe on August 23 and 24 at 00.15 hrs
Horse meat butcher returns to Paris with his life in tatters. He roams the cold, impersonal streets looking for work with no hope of ever finding any. Bitter and angry with himself, his family and the world, his only chance of revenge is with the gun and three bullets he carries with him.