A portrait of the Spanish painter and graphic artist Nuria Quevedo. The daughter of Spanish immigrants, Quevedo came to East Germany as a teenager in 1952. Her longing for her childhood home never left her. In 1970-71, after seeing photos and footage of Spanish immigrants in Dresden, Quevedo created her famous painting 30 Jahre Exil (Thirty Years of Exile). The style of the painting—focusing on motionless, melancholic faces and in a monochrome color scheme—provoked East German critics; but for Quevedo, it was reminiscent of traditional Spanish painting styles.

In this film, the artist returns to sites from her childhood in Spain and talks about exile and rootlessness—themes she depicts in paintings and drawings. This filmic essay by Karlheinz Mund, Quevedo’s husband, thus represents the exiled artist’s journey between two worlds. Quevedo—who has lived in Germany and Spain since German unification—finds her current themes in the Spanish landscape, as well as in the literature of Christa Wolf, Fritz Rudolf Fries, Franz Fühmann and Bertolt Brecht.

(No subtitles. English translation available upon request.)