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In Sarmatia

Volker Koepp travels to the region in Eastern Europe from the Black Sea to the Baltic that was known as Sarmatia in antiquity. A thoughtful documentary about the continuing presence of history and the European dream.

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“…and the old always has an effect on the new:” Slowly and deliberately the camera pivots form right to left, feeling the landscape instead of seizing it. The images in Volker Koepp’s documentary never pretend to be more than an excerpt – fragments of the present, much like how the stories of his protagonists are just fragments of memories. The film takes the director back to his own past as he recalls his trips to this region between the Vistula, Volga, Baltic Sea and Black Sea, an area in antiquity known as Samartia. Today, like in 1972 when Koepp set off for the region to look for the literary traces of the poet Johannes Bobrowski for his film GREETINGS FROM SAMARTIA, he starts with an imaginary and elusive idea and ends up with concrete evidence. What characterises Koepp’s work and makes it so singular is that for Koepp history is made accessible through personal stories and connections via apparent empty spaces. When he turns to abandoned places and forgotten landscapes, he listens to the people there, be it the Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova, or Belarus, and he is reminded of the 18th century German poet Novalis: “All memories are the present.” Meanwhile his journey covers much more since he is, in fact, talking about our Europe – the reality, the idea, and its consequences. He talks to those who leave the area, to those who return, to those who are separated and those who stay, his documentary reveals a longing for tradition and community, but also of the desire for change. “Humans exist only because they are in a position to adapt to any situation,” one interviewee casually notes. Volker Koepp listens and says nothing.

Jens Mayer

Translation: Carla McDougall

Credits

Original title: Alle Erinnerung ist Gegenwart
D 2013, 129 min
Genre: Documentary
Director: Volker Koepp
Distributor: SALZGEBER
FSK: oA
Release: 20.03.2014

Website

Screenings

  • OV Original version
  • OmU Original with German subtitles
  • OmeU Original with English subtitles

Keine Programmdaten vorhanden.

ALLE ANGABEN OHNE GEWÄHR.
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