焦點影人｜真實的邊景：弗柯・克普

In ancient times, the vast area between the Vistula, the Volga, the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea was called ‘Sarmatia’, where Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine can be found today. Quoting the works of the Sarmatia-born German poet Johannes BOBROWSKI (1917–1965), KOEPP travels through the area, depicting the region as the ‘dreamland where all nations and religious [groups] would find their place if history had not ploughed it all up over and over again’.

The final instalment of March Brandenburg trilogy moves away from the town of Zehdenick in order to focus on the rural areas north of Berlin. Made in the period between the currency union in East Germany and the official reunification in October 1990, the film shows how drastically the lives of the residents have changed, as crippling unemployment has taken the place of hard work.

Spring, 1989: For exactly 100 years, the brick-making industry has determined the rhythms of life in Zehdenick, a small town north of Berlin in the state of Brandenburg. Veteran and young brickmakers speak openly and critically about their working and living conditions. As the first instalment of Volker KOEPP's March Brandenburg trilogy, this film was premiered in October 1989, one month before the fall of the Berlin Wall, at the Mannheim Film Festival in West Germany.

Although the director had planned to end the Wittstock documentary series at Life in Wittstock, he continued the project to capture the changes taking place in East Germany after the German reunification. This sixth instalment returns to the town shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The three women workers experience various forms of instability and upheaval when the factory is liquidated; Edith leaves and start a new life in Württemberg.

Chernivtsi, a city in western Ukraine (Czernowitz in German) used to be the centre of the Jewish culture, but only a handful of its Jewish residents survived the concentration camps—Mr ZWILLING, the self-proclaimed pessimist, was one of them. Everyday, Mr ZWILLING visits the elderly Mrs ZUCKERMANN to speak German, to talk about Judaism and their city, and to reminisce about the war.