Jan Peters: December, 1-31 (Dezember, 1 - 31)
December, 1 – 31 (Dezember, 1 – 31), Jan Peters, 97’, Germany, ZDF 25.10.1999, Original German version
Das kleine Fernsehspiel editors explain their desire for collaboration: “Jan Peters’s latest film November, 1–30 is an ironic, manic, entertaining, consistent and incredibly humorous film with a radically subjective approach that uses free association: Jan Peters’s avalanche of images and speech masterfully combines biographical anecdotes, banal observations and philosophical reflections.” So in December 1997, Jan Peters shoots a reel of film every day, “as if I could use a camera like a pen that’s writing this diary, and the tape recorder like a Dictaphone that’s recording my thoughts.” Beyond merely commenting on everyday life, the filmmaker uses the diary film as a means to grieve and to search for a friend who died recently.
Jan Peters (*1966) is a German filmmaker, artist and author. He became known for his short and longer autobiographical diary films, which he shot first on Super 8, later also on 16mm film. His experimental style made him famous in Germany and abroad, where his films were presented at festivals and cultural institutions and received many awards. For Das kleine Fernsehspiel, he made December, 1 – 31 (1999), which also featured in the Berlinale Forum.