Once it was the gift of the gods. Today it is a product of the media: fame that distinguishes the star from the nameless, the extraordinary one from the many. It is imaginary capital; sometimes more desired than material happiness. Out of this capital of fame, the media have developed an industry that itself promises material gain. When the story of media fame began with film, nobody anticipated its power. The first film stars were chosen by the audience: Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin.

Ever since the fame of stars has changed considerably; up to the global superstars of the 90s: Michael Jackson or Madonna. Fame is what cannot be ignored – certainly not at the times of a media event such as the world championship that mobilises the masses worldwide as a battle for sporting fame. The film talks in Arnoldshain (9th-11th June) that are yearly organised by the Arnoldshain Academy and the Film Cultural Centre of the GEP, put up the phenomenon of fame for discussion – the phenomenon in its cinematic reflection, its types of expression, its social implications and its pre-media history.

Fame always has a religious dimension as the cult of the stars shows. In the film “Amadeus” that opened the conference, Salieri quarrels with God because God has given an infantile dwarf – as this Salieri sees him – the gift of being able to create musical marvels. For the film itself – made in 1984 – Mozart is a hedonistic rebel who fights against conventions and incomprehension for the liberty to be able to live as an artist. The counterpart to the uncontested (after-)fame of Mozart is shown in the Belgian film “Everybody is a star”: A father turns his unfortunately much too big and unhappy daughter into the star of a TV singer show by putting on a spectacular kidnapping.

Misery and the promise of happiness of the well-known casting and container shows are mirrored in a film that heeds Andy Warhol’s dictum that everyone could be a star today – for fifteen minutes. The aggressiveness in Oliver Stone’s film “On any given Sunday” -  a film on American football – prompted the conference to discuss the heritage of warlike fame in modern team sport. However, the film musical “Evita” with Madonna in the leading part showed the most uncanny aspect of fame – an overlapping of pop cultural, media and political seduction. Fame is not innocent. Fame, “gloria”, - of this the theological meditation at the conference held in a Protestant spirit remembered – appertains to God alone.