Stolz & Eigensinn

The views of female employees of large factories in a country that no longer exists. Pride & Attitude. A title appropriately settled at the intersection of Kluge/Negt and Jane Austen. The protagonists in Gerd Kroske’s latest survey of the past and the state of affairs in the context and afterlife of East Germany are concerned with both – labour power and questions of women, as in questions about possibilities as a woman to work, participate actively in social life and achieve self-realisation. Or the question of why men take these issues for granted, ultimately regardless of the political system. “The mantle of history blows in favour of those with enough breath to determine the direction of the wind,” states Christa Wolf in a quote at the start of the film. Woman, East Germany, West Germany: Kroske creates an experimental set-up with split screens and asks, “What was once gained – what is lost?” The film presents U-matic footage of female industrial workers in the early 1990s shot by Leipzig’s Kanal X to document real dismantling and layoffs. An archival find. Today, the same women speak again about the loss of their hard-won sovereignty. A multi-channel film. (Barbara Wurm)

Gerd Kroske was born in 1958 in Dessau. After training as a concrete craftsman, he delivered telegrams, and later moved into cultural work with young people. Kroske studied Cultural Sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and Directing at the Academy for Film and Television Konrad Wolf in Potsdam-Babelsberg. From 1987 to 1991, he worked as a writer and dramaturge at the DEFA documentary studio. Gerd Kroske has been making his own films since the autumn of 1989, and founded the realistfilm production company in 1996. The Austrian Film Museum and the DHM dedicated retrospectives to him.

Director Gerd Kroske. Screenplay Gerd Kroske. Cinematography Anne Misselwitz, Jakobine Motz. Editing Andreas Zitzmann. Music Klaus Janek, Michael Thieke. Sound Design Pierre Kirchoff, Michael Kaczmarek, Oliver Prasnikar. Producer Gerd Kroske. Production company realistfilm (Berlin, Germany). With Silke Butzlaff, Steffi Gänkler, Ingrid Kreßner, Bärbel Grätz, Ulla Nitzsche, Brigitte Jahn, Christel Bradler, Cornelia Patzwald, Monika Schumann, Isabell Radecke-Aurin, Norbert Meissner.

Films: 1989: Cassiber (30 min.), Leipzig im Herbst / Leipzig in the Fall (50 min.). 1990: La Vilette (52 min.), Kehraus / Sweeping (28 min.). 1991: Kurt – oder du sollst lachen / Kurt – You Shall Laugh (30 min.). 1994: Vokzal-Bahnhof Brest / Terminus Brest (91 min.). 1997: Kehrein, kehraus / Sweep it Up, Sweep it Down (70 min.), Galeria (101 min.). 2000: Der Boxprinz / The Boxing Prince (97 min.). 2004: Autobahn Ost / Highway East (90 min.). 2006: Die Stundeneiche / The Our Oak (60 min.), Kehraus, wieder / Sweep it Up, Again (100 min.). 2007: Wollis Paradies / Wolli in Paradise (60 min.). 2008: Schranken / Bounds (95 min.). 2012: Heino Jaeger – Look Before You Kuck (120 min.). 2014: Striche ziehen / Drawing a Line (96 min.). 2015: Grenzpunkt Beton / Circuit End Point (20 min.). 2018: SPK Komplex / SPK Complex. 2025: Stolz & Eigensinn / Pride & Attitude.