Friday October 13, 7:30pm
Boris Lehman
A Tale of Hair
Artist in person
Microscope is very pleased to welcome back to the gallery Belgium-based filmmaker Boris Lehman to present the New York premiere of his latest feature film “A Tale of Hair.” The evening will also include a few “surprise” short 16mm films.
Beautifully shot on 16mm film, “A Tale of Hair” follows the artist as he traverses Siberia in a quest for possible offsprings of his persecuted Jewish ancestors. Part of his family was eventually able to escape Siberia, which at the time was known as a “place from which you don’t come back.”
Existential and at times humorous, gentle and irreverent, contemplative and pragmatic — a few of the defining characteristics of Lehman’s oeuvre — this new feature by the filmmaker appears to be a tribute to life as it reaffirms itself and endures even under the most strenuous conditions.
Lehman will be in attendance and available for a Q&A following the screening.
A Tale of Hair
By Boris Lehman, 16mm transfer to digital, 2009-2020, 83 minutes
A Story of my Hair ended on a shot of myself, locked up in a concentration camp. This immediately followed my claiming that I was happy after finally getting home. A song of hope played nonetheless, with a fantasized happy ending (Hollywood kiss) and a song announcing spring. In truth, the film did not end there. There was a second part to the story. The first part told the path of a sentenced man, the second one—of a man who escaped. And so the film had to start with a scene, which could never be shot, in which I escaped from the camp. — BL
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Born in Lausanne on March 3 1944 in a Jewish family, Boris Lehman studied cinema at the National Filmschool INSAS in Brussels, from 1962 till 1966. He is also an actor, pianist and critic of cinema. From 1965 to 1982, he used cinema as a therapeutic medium at a centre of rehabilitation for the mentally ill persons (Club Antonin Artaud). He made, produced and showed all his films on his own, as an independent filmmaker, for almost 50 years (five hundred films). Most of his films were shot on 8 and 16mm film. His films have been shown at international festivals, museums and cinematheques, always in his presence. La Revue Belge du cinéma devoted its 13th issue to Boris Lehman, cinema of autobiography (1985). He is author of three books published by les éditions Yellow Now: Letter to My Friends who Stayed in Belgium (1992), Story of My Life told by My Photographs (2003) and Trying to describe Oneself (2006). His films are distributed by Re:voir. His best-known films include: Magnum Begynasium Bruxellense (1978), awarded a prize at Nyon; Symphony (1979), prize at Lille; Silent as a Fish (1987) prize at Riga; Looking for My Birthplace (1990), prize at Dunkirk; Babel/Letter to My Friends Who Stayed in Belgium (1983-1991), prize at Hamburg; Life Lesson (1994), prize at New York; My Conversations on Film (1995-2013), prize at Paris; Earthen Man (1989), prize at Montreal; A For Adrienne (2000), prize at Brussels; Story of My Life as Told By My Photographs (1994-2002), prize at Brussels; Trying to Describe Oneself (1992); The Last Supper (1995); Man Carrying (2002); Things that Connected Me with Beings (2010); Story of My Hair (2010); My Seven Places (2013); The art of wandering off or the image of Happiness (2015), Lapses , Regrets and Qualms (2016), Funeral (the art of dying) (2016). Lehman lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.
