Julian Rosefeldt is renowned not only for his photography but also for his elaborately staged films. Rosefeldt’s new film installation, “Manifesto”, with Cate Blanchett, puts 13 films running in parallel, bringing angry, youthful, and amazingly current sounding words to the screen. In fact, Rosefeldt collaged historical original texts from numerous manifestos by artists, architects, choreographers, and filmmakers—including texts by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Tristan Tzara, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton, Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Reiner, Sturtevant, Adrian Piper, Sol LeWitt or Jim Jarmusch. Many of them reveal a surprisingly theatrical and literary power. The vitality and the fury of a young generation is inscribed in the thematic and performative energy of the proclamations.

By way of cutting back and combining the texts of various figures, 13 poetic monologues emerged, bringing the new manifesto texts in this work together with situations of today, with women holding public speeches or interior monologues. They are all embodied and presented by the actress Cate Blanchett. Blanchett transforms into figures as varied as a teacher, a tv presenter, a puppeteer or a homeless man.