JAZZCLUB – DER FRÜHE VOGEL FÄNGT DEN WURM | Trouvaillen aus dem Ramsch-Archiv - Black Box im Filmmuseum Düsseldorf

JAZZCLUB – THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM

Germany 2004 · 84 min · 35 mm · Rated FSK 6 · Dir: Helge Schneider · Screenplay: Helge Schneider, Andrea Schumacher · Cinematography: Voxi Bärenklau · Cast: Helge Schneider, Jimmy Woode, Pete York, Horst Mendroch, Andreas Kunze, and others

Helge Schneider’s fourth directorial effort was made after a hiatus of several years, caused by his dissatisfaction with the production of *PRAXIS DR. HASENBEIN* (1997). For *JAZZCLUB*, he shifted down a gear and returned to his roots: to jazz, to his hometown of Mülheim an der Ruhr, and to life as a struggling artist. That’s exactly what fishmonger Teddy Schu (Helge Schneider) is—a man scraping by with odd jobs ranging from call boy to paperboy to finance his music.

The tone feels calmer and more melancholic than in the cinema comedies of the 1990s, yet this heavily autobiographical film is still insanely funny time and again, and is also packed with great jazz music—a seamless blend, just like the best Helge Schneider concerts. “Even if no one will believe it: there’s little in postwar German cinema that can hold a candle to *JAZZCLUB*.” (Thomas Willmann, artechock)

Introduction: Felix Mende (Filmclub 813, Cologne)

Bernhard Marsch (1962–2025), a defining figure in the German film and cinema scene, was a director, cinema operator, and collector. In his RAMSCH archive, he saved hundreds of analog film copies from oblivion and destruction, and he personally screened them in theaters across Germany, including regular screenings at the Black Box. Even after his death, the collection is to be kept alive and continue to bring to light many fascinating discoveries (trouvailles) from film history.