Betina Kuntzsch

A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history.

For technical reasons – too massive! – this 50-ton bronze colossus was not demolished in 1993. Today it is listed as a historical monument, along with the associated housing estate. A relic from the old days: Today, the raised fist of the former German Communist Party leader and erstwhile GDR hero Ernst Thälmann in the Prenzlauer Berg park defies the collective forgetting of a not-so-long-ago past instead of heralding the victory of communism.

A collage of associations evoked by finds. One’s family, three different Germanys including their insidious subchapters, the taste of life. The mother used to be a passionate Chinese checkers player. On the one hand. On the other she was a tailor and fashion designer in the GDR. Her journeyman’s piece: a showpiece with piping, cording, tabs and embroidery around the neckline. One has to love this film, if only for the tender re-animation of these words we presumed obsolete. And for everything else!

Snow, film dust, and particles. The worn and torn broken film from an old lanterna magica projector. Retrieved animated footage from around the 1900s is combined with computer animation.

Picture postcards, travel brochures and holiday photos are all this merrily caustic collage needs to portray moods and desires between the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. In spring 1990, the first Interflug plane carrying GDR citizens touched down on Majorca. About the mediterranean colours of the island, the first-person narrator remarks in the voiceover: “We knew them from the postcards sent by our West German relatives. This was the West, this was West-West.” Ostensibly naïve, her recollections nonetheless develop an ironic undertone. However blue the sea shines in the photos, however loud the castanets play, the travel group with their East German money are never more than onlookers in this half-board paradise. Everything seems like an empty promise: the bursting oranges on the trees, the sumptuous breakfast buffet and the giant hotel pools.

We see the machinery of image projection fail all the time. What happens when art steps in and takes over the process?

ALL UND ALLTAG goes on a journey through the history of the history of DEFA (from 1946 to 1992 the state film film production in East Germany).

The film takes the sprawling form of a Chinese checkers games, creating a collage of associations evoked by movements and gambles. Through one family, three different Germanys take shape, including their problematic subchapters. The film centres on the mother who is a passionate Chinese checkers player as well as a tailor and fashion designer in the GDR. The mother’s favourite piece of work is a showpiece dress with piping, cording, tabs and embroidery around the neckline. One has to love this film, if only for the tender re-animation of words we presumed obsolete.