The Rescheduled Antigone / Die verschobene Antigone (1978), seminar-screening

A screening of The Rescheduled Antigone / Die verschobene Antigone (dir. Volker Schlöndorff and Heinrich Böll, episode from portmanteau film Germany in Autumn / Deutschland im Herbst, West Germany 1978). Introduced by Arshya Bommaraju and Carrie Thomas, with post-screening discussion.

A group of TV executives debate whether they should broadcast a television version of Sophocles’ Antigone commissioned for a series called ‘Youth meets the Ancient Classics’. Should it be aired, or is it an ‘incitement to violence’ and ought to be shelved in the interest of public safety? Sophocles’ play meets television self-censorship in the so-called ‘German Autumn’ of 1977, when a businessman was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction).