Žałosći Nam Łužyca
The Pain of Lusatia
For the first time aerial footage illustrates the extent of the devastation. Landscape designer Otto Rindt conjures up images of a lake district, whilst excavator operator and poet Gundermann questions the logic of the continuing depletion of resources and consumption in general. Man of letters Jurij Koch, whose support of the film in difficult times was later highlighted by director Rocha, reads from then unpublished manuscripts, placing the destruction of the local countryside, as well as of culture, in a global context: “and we are the ones who can define the nature of the fear that overcomes us when the historical end is near. For us it’s conceivable, we know what it means when something comes to an end. Thus we are able to describe the pain of an endangered people, from a first-hand perspective …”. The film, screening of which was blocked time and again, firstly by the GDR authorities and later by mining corporations, remains of disturbing relevance to this day. GL
HDFile | Doc. | Farbe / colour
Peter Rocha, Karl Farber
Karl Faber
Werner Philipp
Werner Philipp
Progress Film-Verleih
Immanuelkirchstr. 14
10405 Berlin
Germany
Tel: +49.30.24003-0
Fax: +49.30.24003-459
verleih@progress-film.de
www.progress-film.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)
HOCHWALDMÄRCHEN (1988, short, FFC 2014)
W BŁOTACH (1989, short, doc, FFC 2006)
KURJOS HOF (1997, short)
WENDISCHES ABENDLICHT: PFARRER HERBERT NOACK, JAHRGANG 1916 (1999, doc)
