Das falsche Wort
The Lie
Director
Katrin Seybold, Melanie Spitta
Federal Republic of Germany / 1987
84 min.
/ Original version with English subtitles
Original language
German, Romenes
The voice of evidence and accusation speaking off-screen is insistent, precise and unyielding. It belongs to Melanie Spitta, the child of survivors of Sinti persecution during the Nazi era. In The Lie, Spitta holds the “thread of truth”, as her co-director Katrin Seybold puts it, in this first coherent portrayal of the genocide of Germany’s Sinti population. Reconstructed on the basis of unpublished “police files and photos of racial researchers, documents of total registration.”
Survivors of the camps open up to Spitta and speak of terrible things. Not least about how post-war society treated them, the few who survived: “The courts believed the perpetrators, not us, the victims.” Everything about this treatment was wrong, there were no “reparations.” The more calmly Spitta speaks, the clearer it becomes how much strength it costs her. And, in turn, the louder the brutal injustice is proclaimed to the world. (Gaby Babić)
This digitally restored version comes from the Filmmuseum München under the supervision of Stefan Drößler and Carmen Spitta, produced by Film Shift GmbH as part of the BKM, Länder and FFA film heritage funding programme.
Katrin Seybold was born in Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) in 1943 and raised in Stuttgart. After studying art history, she began shooting her first films in 1969 about the student movement in film cooperatives, and worked as an assistant director for Ula Stöckl and Edgar Reitz. Starting in 1975, she worked as a director for ARD and ZDF, founding her own production company in 1979. She made over 60 award-winning films and TV programmes on social questions and German history. She joined the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1994 and lived in Munich until her death in 2012.
Melanie Spitta was born in Hasselt, Belgium in 1946. Nearly her entire family was murdered in the RomaniHolocaust. A civil rights activist, she fought for women’s rights among the Sinti and all of society, and worked as a consultant and publicist. She was the first German Sinteza to direct films. In 1999, Melanie Spittareceived the first Otto Pankok Prize, endowed by Günter Grass’s foundation, for her work “because she combatted the lack of memory.” She died in 2005 in Frankfurt am Main.
Directors Katrin Seybold, Melanie Spitta. Screenplay Melanie Spitta, Katrin Seybold. Cinematography Alfred Tichawsky, Heiner Stadler, Klaus Bartels. Editing Annette Dorn. Music Georges Boulanger. Sound Werner Dobusch. Producer Katrin Seybold. Production company Katrin Seybold Film GmbH.
World sales Filmmuseum München
Katrin Seybold: 1970: Die wilden Tiere (short film; with Gerd Conradt). 1971: Akkordarbeiterin beim Osram-Konzern (short film; with the kollektiv Westberliner Filmarbeiter). 1978: Gorleben (short film), Schäfereigenossenschaft Finkhof (short film). 1980: Schimpft uns nicht Zigeuner (short film; with Melanie Spitta). 1981: Wir sind Sintikinder und keine Zigeuner (short film; with Melanie Spitta), Wir sind stark und zärtlich (short film). 1982: Es ging Tag und Nacht, liebes Kind (with Melanie Spitta; Ifb, panorama). 1983: Ein wild, roh, tobend, Volk (short film). 1985: Das erste Mal über 130 Gefahren (short film). 1986: Gefahr für den König (short film). 1987: Das falsche Wort / The Lie (with Melanie Spitta). 1990: Deutsch ist meine Muttersprache (short film), Ich möchte immer darüber reden (short film). 1993: Es ging rasend schnell (short film). 1994: Mut ohne Befehl (Ifb, panorama). 1995: Wut im Bauch (short film). 1998: Nein! Zeugen des Widerstandes in München 1933-1945 (Ifb, panorama). 2000: Ludwig Koch (short film). 2003: Lichtsucher (short film). 2008: Die Widerständigen. Zeugen der Weißen Rose. 2015: Die Widerständigen „also machen wir das weiter...“ (posthumous).
Melanie Spitta (selection): 1980: Schimpft uns nicht Zigeuner / Do Not Scold Us Gypsies (with Katrin Seybold, 45 min.). 1981: Wir sind Sintikinder und keine Zigeuner / We Are Sinti Kids and Not Gypsies (with Katrin Seybold, 22 min.). 1982: Es ging Tag und Nacht, liebes Kind / It Went on All Day and Night, Dear Child (with Katrin Seybold, 76 Min.). 1987: Das falsche Wort / The Wrong Word (with Katrin Seybold, 84 Min.)
After the screening of DAS FALSCHE WORT on February 17, 4 pm at Arsenal Spitta’s daughter, the activist Carmen Spitta, and Petra Rosenberg, chairwoman of the Berlin-Marzahn Detention Camp Memorial, pay tribute to Melanie Spitta’s tireless political work. Hosted by Gaby Babić and Barbara Wurm.
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