Born in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) in 1944, and grew up in the former East Germany (GDR). He graduated from the German Academy of Film Art in Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1969, and entered the state-run DEFA Studio for Documentary Films as a director thereafter. When DEFA was dissolved in the wake of German reunification, Koepp began to work as a freelance director, writer, and producer. During the five decades of his career, he shot more than 60 documentaries. He filmed extensively in East Germany, and later also in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Russia. His earlier works, such as the Wittstock series (1974─1997) and the March Brandenburg Trilogy (1989─1991), document the lives of common people living in the radically changing East German towns with genuine care and compassion. From the mid 90s, Eastern and Central Europe, especially the Baltic coastal region, became another focus of his work. His films tell how people's lives, and the landscapes in which they are living, are impacted by history, economic change, and ecological destruction.
In Sarmatia
In Sarmatia
In Sarmatia
Synopsis
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’.
Festivals & Awards
2014 Visions du Réel
Director's Profile
Volker KOEPP
Filmography
1972 Greetings from Sarmatia for the Author Johannes Bobrowski
1975 Wittstock Girl
1976 The Vast Field
1976 Back to Wittstock
1978 Wittstock III
1981 Living and Weaving
1984 Life in Wittstock
1985 Afghanistan 1362: Memories of a Journey
1985 On the Unstrut River
1989 March Brandenburg Bricks
1990 March Brandenburg Heath, March Brandenburg Sand
1991 March Brandenburg, Inc.
1992 Modern Times in Wittstock
1993 The Wismut
1995 Cold Homeland
1997 Wittstock, Wittstock
1999 Mr Zwilling and Mrs Zuckermann
2001 Courland Spit
2002 Uckermark
2004 This Year in Czernowitz
2007 Sons
2007 Elder Blossom
2009 Berlin-Stettin
2013 In Sarmatia
2016 Piece of Land
2018 Seascape
2023 Leaving and Staying
