Homage to Director Roland Reber & Collective

The names that he has been called! Enfant terrible, provocateur, sexist, porn director and many more. Indeed, Roland Reber was a provocateur in the best sense of the word; one who was concerned with equal rights and sexual freedom for all sexes, who held up a mirror to society's double standards and its taboos. In his films he revealed hidden chambers, locked rooms, sexual fantasies, suppressed desires, lust and vice.

But in the process, he expanded people's ideas and minds with feeling, poetry and philosophy. A rebel for life, he always worked as a true independent, realising his projects together with his women's collective completely independently and without funding. Since 2005, Roland Reber and his collective have been constant guests of Hof Film Festival, where they presented their world premieres. Roland Reber passed away on 11th September 2022.

This year, the 56th Hof International Film Festival is dedicating a tribute to the non-conformist filmmakers and showing six films from its long-standing association with them:

• DAS ZIMMER, 2000/2001
• THE DARK SIDE OF OUR INNER SPACE, 2003
• 24/7 THE PASSION OF LIFE, 2005
• ENGEL MIT SCHMUTZIGEN FLÜGELN, 2009
• ILLUSION, 2013
• ROLAND REBERS TODESREVUE, 2019

Roland Reber was born in Ludwigshafen in 1954, the son of a carpenter, and initially trained as a medical orderly before applying to drama school in Bochum. He began writing poems, texts and plays at an early age. Reber performed on stages in Bochum, Essen, Munich and Zurich and directed plays at e.g. Stadtheater Hof and Curio Haus in Hamburg, where he caused a sensation with his play “allsam”. In 1981 he founded the TheatrePathological Institute (TPI), which played in Hattingen and Lünen and triggered scandals in the Ruhr area.

Later, the TPI changed its name to the Theatre Institute, which then became the World Theatre Project (WTP), realising international projects together with the German, Russian, Caribbean and Mexican UNSECO commissions within the framework of the UN's World Decade for Cultural Development. From 2000 onwards, Roland Reber directed films exclusively with wtp international Filmproduktion, which won several international awards.

We are delighted that the Collective is able to present the homage on-site in Hof...