Directing
In northern Morocco lies the Spanish enclave of Melilla: Europe on African Land. On the mountain above live over a thousand hopeful African migrants, watching the land border, a fence system separating Morocco and Spain. Abou from Mali is one of them – the protagonist in front of the camera, as well as the person behind it. For over a year, he has ceaselessly persisted in attempting to jump the fence.
Gerson Liebl, grandson of a German colonial official from Togo, has been fighting for 30 years for the preservation of German citizenship and a right of residence in Germany. As a last resort, he resorts to a hunger strike. The images of his unflinching perseverance in front of Berlin's Red City Hall are accompanied on the soundtrack by statements, testimonies, paragraphs, legal texts, political viewpoints and excuses – then and now.
Organised groups or individual visitors with or without a guide. A beautiful and well-preserved palace in Berlin is frequented by tourists who visit its chambers, admire the paintings and walk around the meticulously well-tended garden, while thousands kilometres away there stands a dilapidated fortress. It is also visited by groups, which are patiently instructed by a guide as to why such a unique building was erected in Ghana. Moritz Siebert’s film is a remarkable documentary essay. On the example of the two eponymous buildings, the director has managed to capture the essence of colonialism.
When Abou from Mali finally made it to Europe, it felt like a new life had started for him. A life, that offered a future. The film he made about his journey from Africa to Europe gets shown all over the world and throughout Germany, where Abou lives as an asylum seeker. His life oscillates between that of an artist with a voice, who is invited to screenings and events, and the isolation and boredom in a remote refugee centre. An essayistic reflection about Europe’s invisible borders and filmmaking as an act of self-empowerment.
