“I didn’t become the person I wanted to be.” Christoph Schlingensief
Since his premature death in August 2010, Christoph Schlingensief has been deeply missed. Now, the posthumous publication of his autobiographical sketches and reflections offers a profoundly moving “reunion” with the great artist. It’s almost like hearing his voice again.
“The images disappear automatically and are replaced by new ones regardless! Remembering means: forgetting! (So we can absolutely go to sleep for a while!)” These words were the heading over Christoph Schlingensief’s last post on his “Schlingenblog” three weeks before his death. There was little doubt that the time had come to say goodbye to this world. Yet, for Christoph Schlingensief, dying also meant saying goodbye to himself, to his unfulfilled hopes and desires. As a result, during his final year, he intensely questioned himself and his work: sometimes with remarkable humor, like during his book tour in the fall of 2009, sometimes with relentless self-criticism, like in the synopsis for his last film project, which he never had the chance to make.
I Know It Was Me records the multifaceted stages of this self-interrogation while also offering an autobiographical look back at Schlingensief’s life. A legacy for those who love life as it is and as Christoph Schlingensief vividly presented it to us time and again: contradictory, ambivalent, unstable, unfocused – and absolutely beautiful.
