Joachim Polzer

Thatta Kedona is a remarkable village in rural Pakistan. Since 1991 36 volunteers from Western countries have visited and coached the village people in a help to self help project. Dolls and tin toys reflecting regional cultures of Pakistan are products which generate cash income for the farming families through the local cooperative-like NGO. On the other side those volunteers from Western countries are also having their fun by working in a rural village of Islamic society with strong overlays by the traditional culture of Indus Valley, the Mogul period, Hindu culture and the influences of British-India. Hence the playfulness of a "toy village" is on both sides. For the villagers by producing toys for cash in a not-yet industrialized region avoiding rural exodus to the big cites (and thus avoiding the poverty slums that are generated by migration). And joy for Western people being confronted by their own history stages in present time within a foreign context.

One year before the Berlin Wall fell, this silent black&white documentary from 1988 is a profile of West-Berlin: places and people, moods and locations; you eventually see "Checkpoint Charlie" still in function.

Six years after the Berlin Wall fell and five years after German unification this documentary looks into the fast changes in architecture and street life of Berlin Mitte and stays in tune with a piano piece of Ludwig van Beethoven.

A film essay on Ulla Neuerburg, a theater director from Germany, reflecting her work and living in the USA. The visual track of this film was shot in Iceland and in New York City. Formally it's an essay on how sight and sound can influence perception when they are separate from each other.

The first visit to the "Toy Village of Pakistan" and its people before it became the toy village.

A film essay about the New York City based artist Kurt B. Delbanco. His fine art and sculptures "breathe" the spirit of Goethe's philosophy and curved organic shapes. Kurt was a former refugee from Nazi Germany and so he had a lot sad things to tell - contratictory to his cheerful art. To him, the term "design" in in no case a swear word compared to "art".

Profile of the German philosopher Gustav Heckmann who was the initiator of the so called "Urgent Call" against Hitler. In 1932 this was the last attempt by intellectuals (like Albert Einstein, Käthe Kollwitz, Heinrich Mann and others) to prevent the takeover of power by Hitler in Germany. Gustav Heckmann was later a friend of both Max Born and Werner Heisenberg.

Debut documentary film essay and initial film work of Joachim Polzer from 1985. A meditation on what's important in life plus a study in film editing and in human voice montage.

A silent film essay in Super 8 on the aftermath of the Chernobyl atomic reactor events. Filmed in West-Berlin, three and a half years before the Berlin Wall fell, while shooting another documentary.

Profile of Alexandros Papaderos, co-founder and director of the Orthodox Academy of Crete.

A fast railway and motorcar travel from West-Berlin to the south coast of Portugal called "Algarve".

Documentary by Voice-of-Germany journalist Amjad Ali, Norbert Pintsch, Joachim Polzer and Senta Siller from 1991. Second part in a series of three documentaries on Pakistan.

Fanad Head is a remote light house in North-West Ireland. This short documentary inspects the light house installations and service supply delivered by a helicopter even in bad wheather conditions.