H. R. Giger, creator of “Alien”, celebrated at TIFF 2017

     Biomechanics, surrealism, dark creatures and futuristic objects – trademark of Swiss artist H.R. Giger, master of fantastic realism, who will be celebrated at the 16th Edition of Transilvania International Film Festival (2 – 11 June 2017, Cluj-Napoca), through a retrospective. Famous for designing the alien creature in the iconic SF film Alien (1979), which brought him an Oscar, Giger created over 45 years an impressive collection of unique works.

     Portrait of H.R. Giger will include features that explore the backstage of his creation, as well as two titles of the Alien series, both directed by Ridley Scott: the first, made in 1979, and the latest, Alien: Covenant (2017), to be released this year. TIFF's special guests will be director Zev Deans, a passionate of the artist's work and the one who is setting up a H.R. Giger Festival, and Leslie Barany, former agent and close friend of the regretted artist.
     “H.R. Giger's work deserves to be discovered in all its surrealist kinky splendour. This unconventional portrait, inspired by the retrospective dedicated to him in 2015 by the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York, re-composes the intricate personality and the dark imaginary of Giger through a series of novel medium-length features, to which the latest film of the Alien series is added, a series that made the Swiss artist famous,” TIFF, Mihai Chirilov, artistic director of TIFF, stated.
     Film lovers will have the rare opportunity to explore H.R. Giger's world at TIFF. The retrospective includes two groups of shorts. The first one, The Collaborations of H.R. Giger, captures several of his collaborations with other artists: Blondie band, for the album Koo Koo, in A New Face of Debbie Harry (1982, F.M. Murer), and with painters Claude Sandoz and Walter Wegmüller, in Tagtraum (1973, directed by J.J. Wittmer). In Swissmade 2069 (1982, directed by F.M. Murer), a SF dystopia made from the perspective of an alien, Giger makes his debut in costume and props design.
     The second group introduces the viewers into the backstage of Giger's creation: Behind the Scenes of H.R. Giger’s studio. In Passagen (1970, directed by F.M. Murer), fascinated by the erotic mechanics of metal cans' crushing at the dump site, Giger created a famous series of paintings, named Passagen. Interviews taken to friends, family members, curators and collectors outline an intimate portrait of the artist in Giger’s Necronomicon (1975, directed by J.J. Wittmer), while Giger’s Alien (1979, directed by Mia Bonzanigo & J.J. Wittmer) documents the peak of his career – his work on the shooting sets for Alien.
     Details at: TIFF