Throughout the 90s, Frankfurt was a realm of Super 8 culture. Inseparable from the body of work that eventually took shape is the teaching of Peter Kubelka at the Städel Art School over a period of 20 years.
Even though 16 mm was the prevailing format in the 1980s, and all the possibilities opened up by editing were explored to the last detail, eminent filmmakers emerged who also choose to work in super 8. I would like to remember here the late Thomas Feldmann (1958 – 1985).
Artistic concepts like those of Roland Krüger, Karsten Bott, Onno Faller and also Helga Fanderl could not have been realized without the technical possibilities and, more important, the lightness and handiness of the super 8 camera.
Kubelka developed this knowledge more in depth at the by now legendary “Salzburger Sommerschule” ( Salzburg Summer school). It took place over a period of 6 weeks in July and August 1991.There Kubelka demonstrated in detail the technical aspects of super 8. At the same time people had brought along their cameras, films were made and sent to the lab, and the returned prints were projected and analyzed together. As a consequence, filmmakers from Austria like Günter Zehetner, Thomas Draschan and Bernhard Schreiner who had participated in the summer school , came to Frankfurt to join the film class. From then on super 8 would become the exclusive medium of artistic consideration. (Apart from cooking of course which was equally taught as an art form. The 1980s and 90‘s were linked by one fundamental element of form: in camera editing. In addition there was extensive renunciation of sound. The second generation distinguishes itself from the first through their concentration on the self portrait. Elements of the diary film and the travelogue can be seen both in the 80s and the 90s.