LAST MOVIESPresented by Stanley Schtinter
Last Movies explores the subject of the final films watched by a selection of 20th-century luminaries. Delving into the lives and ultimate viewings of figures ranging from Franz Kafka to John F. Kennedy to Kurt Cobain to Heaven’s Gate cult members, the project maps a strange and surprising cultural history from a seemingly arbitrary scatter plot.
As Last Movies’ creator Stanley Schtinter writes, it is “a dedication to the absence of choice, to chance. If there is any bias in the cast list, it is a bias coded into the telling of the first century of cinema (that I parasitise); the result, a forensic of the last earthly dance of a star, and the pause they took (if indeed they did) to catch a movie.” It takes the form of a book, a screening series, and a durational artwork.
Following the project’s premiere at Light Industry in New York City, and a five-month residency at the ICA in London, WHS Teatteri Union is delighted to present the Finnish premiere of Last Movies, with the most cutting of Schtinter’s Last Movies programmes: the unfinished films, inasmuch as the viewer died during the presentation. This is part screening, part presentation, with the artist and author present to guide us through the lives, times and movies explored in the book described by Laura Mulvey as ”very strange, and deeply thought-provoking.”
Charlie Parker (d. 1955)
One O’ Clock Jump, Count Basie, 1955, 3m
Boris Vian (d.1959)
I Spit on Your Grave, Michel Gast, 1959, 5 min
Lee Harvey Oswald (d.1963)
War Is Hell, Burt Topper, 1961, 15 min
Sergio Leone (d. 1989)
I Want to Live!, Robert Wise, 1958, 15 min
Stanley Kubrick (d. 1999)
Eyes Wide Shut (Trailer), Stanley Kubrick, 1999, 1 min
Mystery maker and mystery film (d. 2022), 20 min
Stanley Schtinter has been described by writer Iain Sinclair as ‘the last accredited activist, the last avant-garde.’ His projects include Schneewittchen (IFFR 2024; BFI 2025), Last Movies (Tenement Press; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2023-), The Lock-In (Int’l Short Film Festival Oberhausen; Barbican Centre, 2022), Important Books (or Manifestos Read by Children) (Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2021-2022). His moving image works are distributed by Light Cone, Paris, and he is also artistic director of purge.xxx.
Event Venue
Siltavuorenranta 18, 00170 Helsinki, Finland, Siltavuorenranta 18, FI-00170 Helsinki, Suomi,Helsinki, Finland
Tickets