Filmvorführung „Aus westlichen Richtungen"

Film screening followed by a discussion with director Juliane Henrich, producer Kathrin Lemcke, and curator Philipp Freytag. 

The film essay “From Western Directions” begins with a child’s question: What makes “the West” more than just a cardinal direction? It then sets out to uncover traces of how it has become embedded as a social model in the postwar history and architecture of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Long pans across unidentifiable West German cityscapes alternate with interior shots of a house in the process of disintegration. In drives along highways, suburban streets, and industrial areas, the film traverses scenes of urban sprawl and car-centric cities—set to the rhythm of abstract, harmonious music based on the fundamental tones of the “Tagesschau” news theme. In the film’s exploratory movements, the narrator oscillates between reflections on modern architecture and property relations and fragmented scenes from childhood and the passed-down memory of a “trapped West Germany” in which her parents’ time in a K-group in the 1970s is retraced.

The focal point is, time and again, the single-family home—hailed by Adenauer and his contemporaries as a bulwark against the East, yet denounced by Engels as a means of suppressing all rebellion. Despite his skepticism, the West also appears in the film as a childlike place of longing, where “everyone was still tuned into the same TV program.”

Germany, 61 min, 4K

A collaboration with the video art showcase.mpeg by the Filmische Initiative Leipzig(FILZ).