(a) Arsenal Film Institute
Annual Theme
A film made in East Berlin in 1981, with a rather eventful history of its transmission. Chetna Vora, an Indian exchange student, filmed women who spoke about their lives with rare candour, in long, almost unedited shots.
‘Women in Berlin’ is regarded as one of the most candid documentaries about the lives of women in the GDR.
What’s more, it is a rough cut of a film, projected onto a makeshift screen, recorded on VHS, and has now been restored as part of a project by the KONRAD WOLF Film University Babelsberg.
A film from East Berlin in 1981, with a remarkable history of how it was made. The Indian exchange student Chetna Vora, who a year earlier in Oyoyo had interviewed her international fellow students in the halls of residence at the GDR’s Academy of Film and Television, thereby creating an intimate, open and communal atmosphere, now spoke with native German speakers – women in Berlin. Here, too, privacy was the key to a special conversational setting in which – always on equal terms – relaxed, unstaged conversations could take place. Kitchen conversations for the most part. A film in its rough cut, moreover, with some uncut sequences, long stretches of talking and listening – which is lovely, as the traces of the associative and authenticy remain. The women come from different backgrounds, ranging from young to old. Real women’s lives in the GDR. Caring for others, having children, work, housing, raising children, bonding, breaking up, loving. Rock ’n’ roll by the window. These revelations have survived thanks to film material arbitrarily removed from university storage, projected onto an improvised screen, recorded onto VHS, and now restored as part of a project by the KONRAD WOLF Film University Babelsberg. Berlinale Catalogue
