Films by Bernd Effenberger

USA, Germany 2023, 72 min
by Gudrun Gruber

More than a decade after a sexual assault in her teen years, Detroit resident Sabrina struggles to get by. Non-epileptic seizures and other post-traumatic symptoms deprive her of her mobility and her freedom. Her father, Darnell, who owns an auto repair shop in the city, is one of her closest confidants. Every day he makes himself available to drive his daughter where she needs to go. Together with her husband Tim, the two men form a cocoon around the young woman, but questions of guilt surrounding the past and her illness dominate family life. The vacant house of Sabrina's godmother, a source of her wounding, becomes the focal point in her need to confront that awful night. Sabrina decides to return to both – her trauma place and her own voice as a writer and speaker – to come to terms with her violent past.

Germany 2016, 73 min
by Gudrun Gruber

The US-Mexican border area, Arizona. The Frontier or La Frontera has always been seen as a symbol of freedom on the horizon of the American West and has always been subject to burgeoninng territorial battles. The hilly landscape of the Sonora Desert has not come to rest even today. Every year, the remains of hundreds of migrants are salvaged between the cactus forests and steppes. The advancement of new technology in border security has its effects far inland, and the people live between surveillance systems, fear of terrorism, and the already over 1,100 kilometer long borderfence – and the construction continues. The tense situation in the border area has long divided the inhabitants into two camps: the one demands more border security, the other more humanitary help.But what is the right direction? And does more security technology actually bring more security – or more deaths? This documentary film portrays life on the geographic edge of the United States, from the perspective of the desert dwellers. It accompanies locals, NGOs and paramilitaries on their ways through the border area and offers insight into the world’s largest trade fair for border security technology and industry, the Border Security Expo in Phoenix, Arizona. (HOF)