Acting
Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.
Scenes from Berlin: Kids playing football, a man tries to light a fire in his stove, a film team sets up a shot in a park, students discuss politics.
A look into the life of Holger Meins, the German cinematography student who became a revolutionary and a prominent voice in the Vietnam War protest movement. This film is comprised of interviews with his associates.
Western for the SDS portrays the development of the left as a learning process among women who sharpen their awareness in the movement but continue to have no say. The controversy surrounding the film is shown in the DFFB weekly newsreel Requiem for a Company. The Western was confiscated by the administration, and eighteen students who sided with Straschek were expelled from the academy. The film was considered lost until its rediscovery in 2018.
Documentary about a single mother.
This is a small, intense film based on Schoenberg’s opus of the same name with the subtitle “danger, fear, catastrophe”. It deals with emerging fascism and the persecution of Jews, as well as with their historical continuities.
Straschek's film points to the gap between workers and intellectuals and describes the "difficulties of the revolution" in a biting and witty way.
