Havarie/Collision

In partnership with Litquake and Unnamed Press, the Center for the Art of Translation presents a screening of the German “slow-cinema” film Havarie followed by a conversation about the film with director Philip Scheffner and a reading by author Merle Kröger Collision, a crime novel inspired by research for the film.

Collision – The Book
The research for the film Havarie was starting point and inspiration for the novel of the same title, written by Merle Kröger, and translated from the German by Rachel Hildebrandt and Alexandra Roesch as Collision (Unnamed Press November 2017). The book received the Radio Bremen Crime Novel Award 2015 and the German Crime Novel Award 2016. According to Kröger, “Reality is much more dramatic, violent and incomprehensible than fiction. I decided to take the encounter between the ships as the cause to freeze time, to create a 3-D model from this situation which I can observe from all perspectives. In this kind of model space I now step into each character’s role and try to let him or her think and act on the basis of their individual biographies.”

Havarie – The Film
On September 14, 2012 at 2:56pm, the cruise liner “Adventure of the Seas” reports to the Spanish Maritime Rescue Centre the sighting of a dinghy adrift with 13 persons on board. From a YouTube clip and biographical scenes evolves a choreography reflecting the past, present and future of the voyagers on the Mediterranean.
Director: Philip Scheffner, Color, 97 minutes, 2015/16, Germany