Film Jo Kondo

Jo Kondo (*1947) is one of the most interesting composers of contemporary music in Japan. His music is composed intuitively and at the same time it is highly abstract. Without clear directionality and at the same time not without form. For a Japanese audience it sounds “Western” and in the West it is regarded “Japanese”. A music in between categories. Like Kondo’s music the film is shifting between places and directions: a concert in the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, an elaborate sushi bar in Tokyo, a CD-production in a Cologne radio station, the Zuisenji temple in Kondo’s neighborhood in Kamakura, a town near Tokyo. Kondo wants his music to appear “normal”, without spectacular surface or narrative elements. A concept of “normality” you may also find in the films of Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, who – like Kondo – spent most of his life in Kamakura. So it is not by chance that many shots of A SHAPE OF TIME evoke a reference to the aesthetics of Ozu, from the low camera angle up to the subject of daily life. The film accompanies Kondo to rehearsals, concerts and teaching lessons and witnesses his slow composing process – in clear, static shots.

Viola Rusche born in 1960 in Kiel, North Germany, living and working in Berlin. Music studies in Munich, art studies in Munich and Dusseldorf. Since 1997 working as free-lance editor and filmmaker.

Hauke Harder born in 1963 in Heide (Holstein), Germany. Studied physics and obtained doctorate at Kiel University where he researched in the field of molecular physics until 2000. Started composing in 1989 and took private lessons with Wolfgang von Schweinitz in 1991/92. Curated various concerts and exhibitions including the series “Gesellschaft für akustische Lebenshilfe” which he co-founded and directed from 1989-99. Filmmaking since 2009.

Filme von Rusche & Harder
2016 A Shape of Time – the composer Jo Kondo, 100’
2014 Zeile für Zeile, a film on the composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler, 33’
2012 No Ideas but in Things – the composer Alvin Lucier, 97’