Berlin Premiere: DAS SCHLECHTE FELD

In his documentary essay film DAS SCHLECHTE FELD (Germany/ Austria 2011), Bernhard Sallmann (*1967) examines a village through the ages: the field in front of his parents' house in Ansfelden, Austria. The view from the window shows a landscape cut in half by a multi-lane motorway. By virtue of the information provided by the voiceover, the field becomes a place where international history and family history meet. It becomes the starting point for reflections about childhood, the disappearance of the rural world and the Second World War, when a labor camp for prisoners of war used to stand at that very spot, which was also skirted by the death march of Jewish concentration camp prisoners coming from Matthausen. In static images almost devoid of people accompanied by music by local composer Anton Bruckner, the sediments of different layers of time are unearthed, with a geography of memories becoming visible.