Vor Zeit

Media Name: e4881cb9-0ea6-4d31-a8da-ef019fa67b45.jpg

Time Before Land

Vor Zeit
Juliane Henrich
German Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Germany
2021
80 minutes
German,
Polish
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing, English

Silesia: a contested region marked by migrations. Animosities between the peoples have a long tradition here, not only since the Second World War. But the National Socialist tyranny left clear lesions behind. The director’s grandfather comes from this region, was the organist in a church in Krasiejów – a place which was once also called Krascheow and, for a while, Schönhorst.

The filmmaker Juliane Henrich – or more precisely, her alter ego, the writer Nannina Matz – sets out in search of her family history. What she finds are bizarre ways of representing the history of humanity – and the history of earth. She comes across all kinds of traces of dinosaurs. Some may only be made of plastic, but others are not: A certain species of this genus, whose fossils were found in Silesia, was christened “Silesaurus opolensis” by the Polish palaeontologist Jerzy Dzik. That’s why there is a Dinosaur Park in Krasiejów. And a local museum, of course. But also many people with different individual memories. They do not necessarily lead to ground-breaking discoveries regarding the looked-for family past, but they broaden the view: of the complex history of this region and the way it is thought together, represented and codified.
Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Juliane Henrich
Script
Juliane Henrich
Cinematographer
Juliane Henrich
Editor
Juliane Henrich
Producer
Juliane Henrich, Thomas Kaske
Sound
Tom Schön, Kate Tessa Lee
Score
Benedikt Schiefer
World Sales
Angelika Ramlow
Funder
BKM
Performer
Nannina Matz