Films: Germany

Sweep It Up, Swig It Down - Kehrein, kehraus (1996)

In October 1996, almost 10 years after meeting the three Leipzig street sweepers, director Gerd Kroske visited them again. In the meantime, they had given up their cleaning jobs and lost contact with each other. They struggle to get by, and their lives take place between their apartments, pubs and social welfare offices. Through parallel montage, the director brings his three protagonists together once again and establishes a connection between past and present through quotes from his 1990 documentary film Sweep It Up, exploring what happened to their fears and hopes.

 

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Sweep It Up, Again - Kehraus, wieder (2006)

Ten years have passed since director Gerd Kroske met the three Leipzig street sweepers in 1996. Their social decline is even more visible due to alcoholism and unemployment. While one of them has died, the others just live their lives. Kroske shows his protagonists with dignity and emphasizes their struggle against neglect and the loneliness inscribed in their faces. Critics called the documentary “an intense and bitter film about social coldness and lack of opportunity.”

 

Part 3 of the long observation project known as the Sweep It Up trilogy.

 

 

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I’m Laughing to Keep from Crying - Ich lache um nicht zu weinen (1982)

Olli Harrington and his cartoons are known all over the world. But few know that the Black American artist lives in East Berlin. The film tries to tell who he is and what he believes in.

 

(Production: Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, former Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR)

 

Licensor: Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF 

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Brother Land Has Burned Down - Bruderland ist abgebrannt (1991)

The short is dedicated to the Vietnamese contract workers in the GDR and their fate after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. When the contract between the governments of Vietnam and the GDR was canceled, the workers became unemployed and were sent home. The film is one of the rare testimonies of the time that examines everyday racism before and after the Wall collapsed. 

 

Licensor: Angelika Nguyen

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The Homes We Carry - The Homes We Carry (2022)

A filmic portrait of a family torn apart by the turmoil of world history between Germany, Mozambique and South Africa, at the center of which is the Afro-German mother Sarah. She wants her young daughter to have the relationships she lacked as a child, so she travels with her to Africa, where her own father and the child's father are waiting for them. During this visit, Sarah's father, Eulidio, remembers his time as a Mozambican contract worker in East Germany.  

 

 

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Becoming Black - (2019)

A white couple living in East Germany in the 1960s, tells their Black child that her skin color is purely by chance and has no meaning. This is also what the girl believes, until she accidentally discovers the truth as a teenager. Lucien, her dad, was a student from Togo and her married mother had an affair with him. The child is filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. This intimate portrayal is an examination of social and political implications that testify to a culture of rejection and structural racism.
 
Licensor: junofilms.com
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Omulaule Means Black - Omulaule heisst Schwarz (2003)

During the Namibian War of Independence, almost 500 Namibian children were relocated from 1979 onwards, from various refugee camps to the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The children grew up in the GDR and only returned to their home country, that was foreign to them, in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at the onset of Namibian independence. In the film some of the colloquially denoted ‘GDR children of Namibia’ look back on their childhood and youth. They call themselves “Omulaule” what means “black” in Oshiwambo language.

 

Available at UMass library.

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The Brasch Family - Familie Brasch (2018)

Brasch—a legendary name that represents one of the most sensational German families. Director Annekatrin Hendel presents a portrait of three generations of the Brasch family as a microcosm of the social tensions that were raging on a large scale in European history: between East and West, art and politics, communism and religion, love and betrayal, and utopia and self-destruction.
 

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Claiming Space – East Germany’s Independent Art Exhibit Scene - Behauptung Des Raums – Wege unabhängiger Ausstellungskultur in der DDR (2009)

As of the late 1970s, young East German artists, especially in the larger cities, created spaces for cultural experimentation that were separate from official art channels. Through their art, they rebelled against both the existing art market, and the country’s political climate. 

 

Leipzig, for example, became an important center of this subculture created by painters, photographers, musicians and poets. From 1985 to 1989, the EIGEN+ART gallery in Leipzig-Connewitz provided a venue for these artists to present themselves to the public. 

 

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Landing - (1997)

Landing is the story of a young Afro-German woman who wakes up to discover that she is invisible... something she has always dreamed of being. Screened at the Berlinale in 2007.

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LoveLoveLiebe - (1999)

Hans loves Fatima and he will do anything to make her feel at home in Germany. Fatima loves Hans and she will do anything to feel at home with him. This short student film was shot on 35mm.

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Dirt for Dinner - Dreckfresser (2000)

In 1992, shortly after a series of racist murders and attacks against immigrants in former East Germany, posters throughout the country began featuring the smiling face of Sam Meffire, a young Afro-German police officer in the formerly East German state of Saxony. Meffire became well-known and a symbol of tolerance in Germany; but in 1994, he suddenly left the force and, two years later, was sentenced to ten years in prison for extortion and armed robbery.

 

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