Three Stones for Jean Genet

Frieder Schlaich about his short film

Since 2005, when the shooting of „The African Twintowers“ took place, Patti Smith, Karim Debbagh and I have been sharing an idea. 8 years later, in April 2013 we finally realized it.

In this particular moment there was no plan for a film, the situation seemed to private to me. But I wanted to document our little discovery tour in some way and packed Christoph Schlingensief‘s 16mm Bolex camera, which had been given into my custody shortly before. Patti Smith was friends with Christoph Schlingensief and I knew she would like this reference. There were also a few rolls of old black and white material left.

On a sunny day, after Patti Smith‘s concert in Tanger, we gave her a tour through town and to the beach-café at Cape Spartel, to places that linked us through Paul Bowles, whom the three of us knew well and admired. On the second day we went to Larache. At the grave of Jean Genet we did only a few shots. I wasn‘t much used anymore to put in film rolls, but it was nice to shoot with the heavily-rattling Bolex. A day later I strolled another time through Tanger with the camera and filmed a couple of places that we had visited in shots as long as possible. (The Bolex works with a spring, not with batteries, it runs for 30 min maximum.)

Patti Smith revealed the entire secret of the three stones only in Summer 2013, when I asked her to record the story, before her concert in Hamburg, in a hotel room. There was only one take, exactly like with the Bolex - which became this short film now. What the three stones are about, can‘t be disclosed here of course, it can only be told by Patti Smith, in the film.

This small film is a gift, you couldn‘t make up something like that.