Fiktionsbescheinung Program 5

The „Fiktionsbescheinigung“ explores the question of how culture in general and cinema in particular are related to society and racism. It is dedicated to the work of Black directors and directors of colour in Germany and sees itself as an experiment in shared curatorial responsibility that also seeks to shine a spotlight on a chapter of German film production that has been unfairly neglected.

The film selection was put together by curators Karina Griffith, Jacqueline Nsiah and Can Sungu, supported by Enoka Ayemba and Biene Pilavci and the Berlinale Forum selection committee. 

Ein Herbst im Ländchen Bärwalde

Roughly 100 kilometres from the Polish border lies the German hamlet of Bärwalde. In the early 1980s, Gautam Bora, an international student at the University of Film and Television in Babelsberg (HFF), made the region his subject for EIN HERBST IM LÄNDCHEN BÄRWALDE, capturing a precise moment in its annual farming season.

Stylistically, the film adheres to the HFF’s then-established commitment to social realist documentary, portraying daily life in East Germany in a television-friendly style guided by an admirable clarity of vision. Bora and cinematographer Marwan Salamah’s attention to detail also adds a subtle, indelible sense of the poetic. Throughout we see images of hands, tools, fabrics or the specific crops that have received care for the previous several months, each quietly communicating as much about life and labour as the first-person interviews they appear alongside. Such directorial sensitivity is equally seen in the space the film offers to not only the men but also the women, working with equal dedication inside the home or the adjacent barnyards. The print was recently digitised and restored by the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. (Jesse Cumming)

Oyoyo

OYOYO by Chetna Vora, a film student from India, is the first film she made at the Academy for Film and Television in Babelsberg, whereby she decided to film her social surroundings. In this rare, singular profile, students from Chile, Guinea-Bissau, Mongolia, Cuba and Bulgaria talk about student life in the GDR, what informed their decision to study there and the challenges that came with it. The entire film is shot inside the hall of residence and offers intimate, candid conversations around love, aspirations and dreams of their future in an organic way between the director and her protagonists. Vora’s incredibly precise camerawork and ability to capture the students’ problems and desires within natural conversations gives the film a true insider perspective and a wonderfully unique quality. These interview scenes alternate with music by Cuban Silvio Rodriguez, Brazilian Nara Leão and songs in Cape Verdean Creole. The original film copy is slightly longer, but unfortunately became damaged in parts over the last decades. The Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF provided a working copy and with the Film Heritage Funding Programme (FFE) will digitalise the original film copy. (Jacqueline Nsiah)