STÄDTCHEN


Städtchen

11:50 min | 4K | mono | 2012
director | editor | producer: Mandy Krebs
camera: Felix Pötzsch
sound: Marko Schiefelbein
cast: Cathrine Evans, Roger Evans, Stefan Ewald, Klaus Lang, Klaus Kaufhold, Julius Münchow, Kristof Meier, Dagmar Alexandra Zech

This haunting look at life in a totalitarian city is based on former living conditions in East Berlin under the DDR regime. A taut thriller that creates suspense out of silence.

Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt

The work Städtchen is about the structures and demarcation of accessibility in public spaces. In a district of Berlin, men in uniforms guard a sealed classical building and escort a passer through the streets. A factual text tells of the situation within the closed area, which can be entered only by permit. Still images portray peaceful town houses, modern and restored buildings surrounded by parking strips. The sound reinforced the idyllic impression.

With the help of documentary representation method and Reanactment the film tells the story of the place fragmentary, but does not explain in detail:

In the GDR, the street Majakowskiring was a heavily guarded residential area for military and government members. With its own infrastructure and high security requirements. Until 1973 it was a restricted area, after dissolution of the state, the road developed again to the bourgeois neighborhoods, which it had been previously. The place has not been historicized, traces of the past but also not destroyed as it happend with other buildings of the GDR government. Thus, in Städtchen becomes visible architectural conditions are characterized by contemporary and historical elements.

The work does not undertake mediation of specific political background. Rather, it is a concern with a discussion of the question of the timeliness of such a residential structure and the experience of living in this.

The history of protection off of certain areas in the urban area follows two opposing traditions – the ghettoization and the establishment of gated communities, their number is increasing worldwide since the 1970s. As resettlement or voluntary withdrawal from these habitats are characterized by a strong homogeneity of its people, social segregation and separation from the environment. Found in GDR times the hedge built on the Soviet model Städtchen by military guards take place, today security systems, surveillance cameras and private security companies that work.

//Jasmin Meinold

2015
Artist Sweethearts, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Germany
Kurzfilmabend, Hermannshof Völksen, Germany

2014
FKX – 3rd Student Festival for Media Art & Performance, KunstWerk, Fellbach, Germany

2013
Letters from Pocket Embassy III (Budapest Edition), Massolit, Budapest, Hungary
Athens Video*/Art Festival, Athens, Greece
Letters from Pocket Embassy II (New York Edition), NOTHING SPACE, New York, USA
WRO 15th Media Art Biennale – Pioneering Values, Wrocław, Poland
C.A.R 2013 – Media Art Fair, Welterbe Zollverein, SANAA-Gebäude, Essen, Germany
Lichter Filmfest, Frankfurt, Germany

2012
Conditions Change – Meisterschülerausstellung 2012, University of Arts, Brunswick, Germany