Witaj heißt: Ich grüße dich
Witaj means: I salute you
In Tauer, Brandenburg, where Rocha taught, contemporary witnesses recall how he encouraged and emboldened them, despite the discrimination these “Wendish parasites” were generally subject to, to have pride and confidence in developing a native culture. What it means to be a Sorb in the modern age is explored by Peter Rocha in conversation with intellectuals and youths, onto which he projects dreamlike sequences portraying remains of Sorbian folk culture, such as the zapust, a Sorbian carnival.
The director then added a third layer to this discourse, as ghostlike images of power station cooling towers and the squeal of coal trucks occasionally are intertwined in the discussions, a subtle hint at the threats Sorbian culture were exposed to at the time. The DEFA director's message was understood, as Peter Rocha proved himself more than able of continuing the family tradition of resistance. GL
DigiBe | Farbe / colour
Peter Rocha
Detlef Tetzke
Andreas Walter, Klaus Schieber
Stiftung Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv
Marlene-Dietrich-Allee 20
14482 Potsdam
Germany
Tel.: +49.331.581.21 03
dra-babelsberg@dra.de
www.dra.de
Peter Rocha - born 1942 in Gotha, died 2014 in Potsdam, Germany. The son of a Lower Sorbian family, he learned masonry and later studied painting and documentary film direction at the HFF “Konrad Wolf” from which he graduated in 1969. A year later he took up employment at the DEFA, becoming a freelance documentary filmmaker in the 1990s.
WÄSCHE (1966, short, doc)
DER OKTOBER KAM (1970, doc)
HOCHWALDMÄRCHEN (1988, short, Cottbus 2014)
W BLŁOTACH (1989, short, doc, Cottbus 2006)
ŽAŁOSĆI NAM ŁUŽYCA (1989/90, doc, Cottbus 2006)
KURJOS HOF (1997, short)
WENDISCHES ABENDLICHT: PFARRER HERBERT NOACK, JAHRGANG 1916 (1999, doc)
