Dokumentarfilm "Solange Sie noch Arme haben" / - ENGLISH TEXT BELOW - (92min) von Luisa Bäde
Ein Studioraum. Puppen. Frank Karbstein.
Erinnernd, reflektierend, spielend, erzählend.
Die 1980er Jahre der DDR – die Gruppe um den Puppenspieler Frank wird wegen dem Verteilen pazifistischer Flugblätter festgenommen. Nach der Verurteilung zu einer Haftstrafe bekommen die Angeklagten das Angebot über den geheimen Freikauf politischer Häftlinge in den Westen zu gehen. Frank bleibt. Ebenso die Frage: Wer hat sie verraten?
Unterschiedlichste Wahrheiten und Erinnerungen stehen nebeneinander. Im Mittelpunkt steht ein Mensch, der versucht niemals aus einer Opferhaltung heraus zu handeln und der seinen ganz persönlichen Umgang mit der DDR-Diktatur aufzeigt.
-- english synopsis -
Documentary "As long as you still have arms" (92min) by Luisa Bäde
A studio room. Puppets. Frank Karbstein.
Reminiscent, reflective, playful, narrating.
The 1980s of the GDR - the group around the puppeteer Frank is arrested for distributing pacifistic leaflets. After being sentenced to imprisonment, the defendants are offered the opportunity to go to the West through a secret buy out of political prisoners. Frank stays. But the question remains: Who betrayed them?
Different truths and memories stand side by side. In the centre of this is a person who never tries to act from the mindset of a victim and who shows his very own personal way of dealing with the GDR dictatorship.
DIRECTORS Statement:
With curiosity and with a certain separation from the GDR generation, I question Frank. He answers in his own medium: By playing with the puppets, Frank lets us participate in his past. It is his companions whose documental voices also speak to the viewer and whose perspectives stand alongside those of Frank’s.
The improvised play with the puppets makes the unspeakable experiences perceptible. This space of the past allows me to enter into a new dialogue with Frank, moving into the present.
We have the chance to reflect in a new way through the distance we have gained thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because in the end it is not just about the GDR. In the end, the question is how, through hindsight, we are to look forward and how we want to live together as a society.
CREDITS:
Director. Concept & Production: Luisa Bäde
DOP: Jule Katinka Cramer & Hannah Platzer
Art Director: Santiago Alvarez
Puppet Making: Bruno Belil Espinós, Francisco López Martínez Editor: Renan Laviano
Additional Editor: Nicole Schmeier Sound: Lukas Soboll Sounddesign: Holger Buff
Sound Mixing: Janis Ahnert
FESTIVALS / Nominations:
German Filmrating Comission: "Seal of Approval ‘highly recommended’
53th Hof International Filmfestival (Nominations: GRANIT Documentary Award)
Official Selection: 24th Annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (cancelled because of Covid19)
Nominations:
Center of Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award // Charles E. Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award // Full Frame Presidents’s Award)
Neisse Filmfestival
BIOGRAPHY Luisa Bäde
Born 1988 in Gera/GDR. After studying "Digital Film and Animation" in Cologne, she lived and worked until 2015, mainly as an assistant director in the film industry and produced her own short films. In 2014 she began studying at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, with a focus on film directing. Her cinematic and photographic works move fluidly between documentary and fictional. In 2017/2018 she studied at the Universidad National de Colombia in Bogotá. She will graduate in 2021 with a diploma in "Media Arts".
„AS LONG AS YOU STILL HAVE ARMS“ (2019) is her first feature-length documentary.
FILMOGRAPHY Luisa Bäde:
MAMITA (documentary, in progress)
SOLANGE SIE NOCH ARME HABEN / AS LONG AS YOU STILL HAVE ARMS (2019, feature length documentary),
ONESHOT (2016, Performance Video, Co-Director & Performance, Short) DRÖHNENDES SCHWEIGEN (2016, fiction short, 6min),
DIE BITTEREN ENTSCHEIDUNGEN DES MANNES AUF DEM MOND (2015, experimental short),
ICH HASSE 4:3 (2015, Video-Loop, Short)
ORGASMATRON (2015, documentary short)
SCHLIMMER FINGER (2014 experimental short),
5 MINUTEN THERAPIE (2013, mockumentary, short),
SCHEISS ERDBEERE (2012, fiction short),
SCHWEIGEN IST GOLD (2011, fiction short),
A NAME DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING, RIGHT? (2009, fiction short),
BYE BYE, PAPA (2008 fiction short),
LEAVING FOR CANADA (2008, music video)
