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Filmstill We Call Her Hanka

We Call Her Hanka

Bei uns heißt sie Hanka / Pla nas gronje jej Hanka / Pola nas rěka wona Hanka
Grit Lemke
German Competition Documentary Film 2023
Documentary Film
Germany
2023
92 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

A green lawn like an unused carpet, encircled by a neat forest edge, in the background the steaming cooling towers of a coal power station – impressionistic camera images from Lusatia. They summarise in one pan how a used-up utilitarian landscape is trying to recultivate itself. Can ancient identity and language be re-discovered amid this strange artificiality? The director travelled through this region in search of her origins. She was born here, in Lusatia. This is her home and that of the smallest of all Slavic peoples: the Sorbs.

She thinks about the assimilation of this cultural and linguistic community with the indigenous people, about its history of oppression in the various German systems, about a region caught up in structural change and the identity-shaping power of words – even if one has to learn them anew first. She meets a German Anna who becomes a Sorbian Hanka. She encounters people dedicated to preserving the traditions. The younger folks especially see their Sorbian-ness as a commitment to a community spirit, if not – like the artist, Hella – as an alternative way of life. Accompanied by old and new Sorbian sounds, along the filmmaker’s offscreen reflections, the many-voiced portrait of a nation within the nation emerges who reclaims its culture out of the local museums back into its everyday life.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Grit Lemke
Script
Grit Lemke
Cinematographer
Uwe Mann, Martin Farkas, Reiner Nagel
Editor
Sven Kulik
Producer
Annekatrin Hendel
Co-Producer
Thomas Beyer, Roman Nuck, Rolf Bergmann
Sound
Oliver Prasnikar
Sound Design
Michael Kaczmarek
Score
Walburga Walde, Izabela Kałduńska
Nominated for: Gedanken Aufschluss Prize, Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, DEFA Sponsoring Prize, VER.DI Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness
MDR Special Screening 2022
Filmstill The Corner
The Corner
Christa Pfafferott
World history meets local history on the street corner of Sperlingsberg in Oberdorla, Thuringia. In 1945, an American soldier was shot here. Decades later, a photo of him is circulating on the internet. Director Christa Pfafferott places this picture at the beginning of her research.
Filmstill The Corner

The Corner

Die Ecke
Christa Pfafferott
MDR Special Screening 2022
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
90 minutes
German,
English
Subtitles: 
German

World history meets local history on the street corner of Sperlingsberg in Oberdorla, Thuringia. In 1945, an American soldier was shot here. A photo of him became famous and, decades later, is circulating on the internet. Director Christa Pfafferott places this picture at the beginning of her research.

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Christa Pfafferott
Cinematographer
Johannes Praus
Producer
Katrin Thomas
Broadcaster
arte, Sabine Lange
Commissioning Editor
Ulrich Brochhagen