Maria Lang

"Here it is very nice at the Moment" is a triptych. In the first part, "Maria und die Welt", Ute Aurand films Maria Lang in 1995, who moves to the countryside to take care of her mother. The second part, "Familiengruft - ein Liebesgedicht an meine Mutter" was produced by Maria Lang in 1981. It tells about what we most often keep quiet - prohibitions, barriers but also love. Twenty-two years later, Ute Aurand films Maria's daily care of her mother, now ninety-six years old: edited in 2006 by the two filmmakers, "Der Schmetterling im Winter", composes the last element of the triptych.

Sophie, fourteen years old, rides her bike to a remote area after school to read a book about the holocaust. She collides with Joseph, who is the same age, on her bike, and their paths become intertwined. A pile of paving stones next to a bunker triggers an idea: they want to dedicate a stone to each person murdered by the Nazis.

A portrait of Maria Lang's mother, which is also a family portrait of the filmmaker. The film shows an excerpt from the Lang family's everyday life. It follows the parents as they go about their daily chores and small rituals.

Ute Aurand films Maria Lang in her daily activity as she cares for her mother. The presence of the filmmaker is visible in the camera movements and in the editing rhythm. Admiration and discretion are sensed. We enter into the intimacy of mother and daughter through the eyes of a friend. The silent images create an occasion for attentive observation and balanced awareness.

Stories from the lesbian subculture in West Berlin, about being in love, clichés, desire, and conflict – “shot as a narrative, with real lesbians at real locations about real feelings”.

A film about my friend Maria Lang. The light falls on a few details, chance selections, out of which a place is composed, the place where Maria lives with her mother. A landscape, a village, a kitchen, 25 her room.