From Bioscopy to Wenders (programme)
The German Pioneers of Cinematography (magazín UNI)




Archa Theatre and Goethe-Instituut-Prag present

From Bioscopy to Wenders
100 years of Cinematography in Berlin

April 10 and 11, 1996

A performance about the forgotten founders of World cinematography. Max Skladanowsky and his brother preceded the Lumiér brothers by one month. Wim Wenders made a film about this one hundred years later.

Evening Programme:
-- The original film of the Skladanowsky Brothers presented on November 1, 1895 at the variety theatre Wintergarten. The film was originally shown by using the instrument called the bioscopy - it was a difficult to digitally technically reconstruct it and it was presented in renewed premiere on Berlinale 1995 with huge success.
-- The new film of Wim Wenders "Skladanowsky".
-- A lecture by Jens Becker "The Contribution to the Beginning of Cinematography by the Skladanowsky Brothers ".
-- Exhibition of documents, historical instruments and original photographs of Max Skladanowsky.





The German Pioneers of Cinematography

(…) The idea to "bring photography to life" came to both brothers during their experiments to improve the principle of projecting "hazy pictures". They already constructed their very first "handle camera" in 1892. Their invention ran up against some misunderstanding and because of this, they didn't receive credit from the bank, thus the other works of other inventors had their break.
Nonetheless, in 1895, Max Skladanowsky produced the bioscopy: an instrument founded on the principal of two flickering light projectors. With it, the brothers were engaged in the variety "Winter Garden", where at the beginning of November - the first in Europe - a public film performance was organised where admission was taken. Indeed several weeks later, on December 28, the Lumiér brothers presented their technically perfected cinematography on the Kapucin Boulevard in Paris, where it received a fantastic success - totally overshadowing the names of Max and Emil Skladanowsky as film pioneers. Max Skladanowsky did not succeed as a filmmaker - he founded a not very successful film company and later started to make a name for himself in photography - he was successful, especially with his "pocket cinematography" - a small book of photographs which create the illusion of movement when you turn the pages very quickly …

Tomáš Seidl, magazín UNI