SECTION: Homeland | Domownja | Domizna

31FFC Sektions Button Heimat

Sorbian, regional and international filmmaking, all brought together in one place. Current feature films and documentaries as well as archive treasures and rediscoveries reflect, in a variety of ways, on the meaning of home. Films from Upper and Lower Lusatia speak of Sorbian worlds. Lusatia was and remains: serbski! At the same time, we also encounter stories from elsewhere that resonate just as powerfully here as they do in the places where they originally took place.

A Sorbian Folklore Group - Sprjewjan. Serbska Folklorna Skupina

Eine sorbische Folkloregruppe - Sprjewjan. Serbska Folklorna Skupin

Michael Börner
GDR / 1987 / 16 min

Sorbian musical heritage, embedded in the Lusatian countryside, as depicted by this portrait of the folk ensemble Sprjewan, founded in 1979 and in existence to the current day. Who are the founding members and what motivated them to devote their ...

When traces become visible

Wenn Spuren sichtbar werden

Toni Bruk, Ladislav Volko
GDR, Czechoslovakia / 1983 / 18 min

“What are the roots of the present?” asks this collaboration between Sorbian and Slovak filmmakers with regard to the origins and diversity of the Sorbian language; an enquiry that takes them back to the Pan-Slavist movement.

The Man who knew 75 Languages

Mannen som kunne 75 språk

Anne Magnussen, Paweł Dębski
Norway, Poland, Lithuania / 2016 / 64 min

"To my mind language is the key to the human soul"; these were the words of German publicist and polyglot Georg Sauerwein (1831-1904) who applied his linguistic talents to the protection of minority languages, including Sorbian. This animated ...

Echoes

Resuns

Aline Suter, Céline Carridroit
Switzerland / 2014 / 51 min

Can a language also provide a home? In remote villages located across the canton of Graubünden around 35,000 people speak Romansch. In this poem constructed from imagery, sound, song and nursery rhyme the directors catch the echo of an ...

Witaj means: I salute you

Witaj heißt: Ich grüße dich

Peter Rocha
GDR / 1980 / 45 min

During the era of the German Empire Sorbian teacher and popular poet Fryco Rocha (1863-1942) not only taught Sorbian, which was in fact prohibited at the time, but also composed a number of poems, tales and songs in his mother tongue. The director ...

Continent of Hope

Kontinent Hoffnung

Konrad Herrmann
GDR / 1978 / 31 min

Sorbian artist Heinrich Theodor Wehle (1778-1805) is widely regarded as one of the most eminent landscape painters of his time, and in fact often finds himself compared with the great Caspar David Friedrich. Threading an associative patchwork quilt ...

Struga - Portrait of a Region

Struga - Bilder einer Landschaft

Konrad Herrmann
GDR / 1972 / 30 min

A deserted village covered in nothing but ruins. An excavator eats into the land, as trees are felled. A Sorbian prayer in the village church. A folk club rehearses a Sorbian song. Power station workers chuckle to themselves. And then there is the ...

In Search of the Promised Land. The Stories of Jurij Brězan

Suche nach Glücksland. Die Geschichten des Jurij Brězan

Konrad Herrmann
GDR / 1989 / 49 min

Sorbian author Jurij Brězan, who passed away in 2006, was driven by his belonging to a people “under threat”, as well as the “eternal questions of mankind”. This biographical essay traces both of these strands by combining interview and ...

Race Against Time. The Sorbs - Slavs in Germany

Leben gegen die Zeit. Die Sorben - Slawen in Deutschland

Konrad Herrmann
Germany / 1993 / 46 min

Shortly after the German reunification, and shortly before the turn of the century, it was considered time for a brutally honest assessment of Sorbian identity and culture. The process of assimilation had proven onerous for this Slavic minority, as ...

Portrait of a Central Point. A Film Based on the Sketches of Jurij Brě