In association with Wieden+Kennedy / JOINT
A New Nebula Society Production
A film by Ken August Meyer
Documentary Feature | USA | 74 min.
Synopsis
Paul Klee, a Swiss-German painter, fled Germany in 1933 when he and other modern artists were vilified by the rising Nazi Party. Isolated in Switzerland, a mysterious disease began wreaking havoc on his body and profoundly changing his artwork. Narrator/director, Ken August Meyer, explores Klee’s expressive last works after being diagnosed with the same life-threatening disease, systemic scleroderma. Through a curation of Klee’s work, Ken finds powerful messages on coping with his own mortality. Using colorful and whimsical visuals, Angel Applicant echoes the mystique and ironic wit of Klee, demonstrating how creativity can inspire us to overcome personal suffering and make the most of life.
Photo Courtesy: Zentrum Paul KleeAbout the Director
Ken is a drugstore stock boy turned Zamboni driver, turned graphic designer, turned art director, turned aspiring filmmaker. He studied art and design at the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University in Ohio. He freelanced for several years as a graphic designer, before taking a position in 2002 at the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, in Portland, Oregon. After working as a senior art director at W+K for over a decade creating commercial work, he has taken medical leave to focus on his battle with systemic scleroderma. While having had the opportunity to work with some of the most talented creatives in the world, he gained a passion for storytelling which drove him to chip away at making a film about his struggle living with the disease.
Director’s Statement
It was not my intention to make myself the subject of a film, as I’ve become quite reclusive as a result of systemic scleroderma affecting my body. However, it occurred somewhat naturally when reading about Paul Klee’s own struggle with the disease, that I began to feel a deep connection to his expressive last works—a reexamination of the artwork that I studied in school, but now through the lens of living with the same progressive illness. Within various biographies and the entire catalog of his life’s work, I was able to chronologically track along with his themes and titles, a familiar sense of melancholy coupled with humor and optimism. It became overwhelmingly relatable to the extent that specific ailments seen in his daily drawings, would by happenstance coincide with the very same things that I was beginning to experience.
I know we shouldn’t spend much time navel gazing, but in an absurd transcendental way, I felt an obligation to tell this story, so I began documenting what was happening to me. I wanted to provide modern day context to the suffering that propelled Klee’s massive creative achievement, but also in a sort of fun-house mirror, to reflect his colorful and poetic perspective that inspired me, in the hopes that it might inspire others living with uncertainty.
This film became a lifeboat. Something to hold onto and give me a feeling of purpose and hope when it became necessary to take medical leave. I’m often powerless to the effects of scleroderma, so to be able to use what I learned while working at Wieden+Kennedy, gave me my own way of defying the disease. After a decade-long slow paddle to land, I am incredibly grateful to so many for their support and to W+K/JOINT for the resources to bring this film ashore. Screening it with an audience will be truly cathartic. It is my intent that this film will generate awareness for scleroderma in a culturally meaningful way.
Learn more about scleroderma at scleroderma.org.
