Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, Cinéastes

One of the wonderful side effects of the recent celebration of the Portuguese director Pedro Costa has been the discovery of this superb portrait he made of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. Working together for over four decades, and responsible for such masterworks as The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, Moses and Aaron and Class Relations, Straub and Huillet decided to create a new version of their film Sicilia! together with the art students at la Fresnoy in France. Costa focuses on uncovering their actual working relationship: Straub, easily distracted and given to long philosophical discourses to justify his ideas about the film; Huillet, more focused and practical, challenging him to make up his mind and move forward. There are moments of great humor, as well as great tenderness in in this revealing study of two of modern cinema’s most intrepid pioneers.