Straub & Huillet’s complete works should be available within two years in four boxsets thanks to French DVD publisher Editions Montparnasse. For now, let’s pay tribute to the release of the first boxset that gathers five of the couple’s German films: their first two films that derived from Heinrich Boll’s stories -Machorka Muff in 1962 and Not Reconciled or Only Violence Helps Where Violence Rules in 1964-65- and three films in relation with composer Arnold Schoenberg -Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a Cinematic Scene (1972), Moses and Aaron (1974) and From Today Until Tomorrow (1996). It’s natural to begin with these films: i) in Germany, which was the couple’s first country of adoption, with the couple who straightaway permit the dialectique to take place in life, ii) with the horror of Nazism, which formed the core of their cinema from the beginning, iii) with the music that has always had a crucial importance in their work. To be continued with the release of an “Italian period” coming soon in about a year…

Bastien Hader