Films by Bettina Renner

2018, 93 min
by Bettina Renner

Haris is fifteen years old. He was born in Dresden and grew up with a self-concept of being german. But now, during puberty, Haris not only discovers girls, but also his otherness, as he says: His bosnian roots. He explores what part of him is bosnian and constructs his own identity.Haris's older sister, Adisa, was seven years old when she and her mother and brother Farouk had to flee Bosnia in 1992 and came to Dresden. When she was as old as Haris today, she tried to take away everything from Bosnia to adapt herself to her new home. Only very few people around her know that Adisa was once a refugee. She feels at home in Saxony, Dresden. It is her home.The documentary Here and There tells the story of the teenager Haris and his family. The film tells about the growing-up of a boy and pursues an universal, fundamental question of life: What is identity? How do we construct our identity? What influence does the outside have on self-attribution? What do we find inside? How do we discover ourselves? Haris will fight with his sisters. They both picture the image of a modern woman - but he has a completely different role model on his mind. Where do these thoughts come from?Our film narrates an individual family history and gives a very far-reaching and personal perspective on the societal-political issue of escape.

2011, 90 min
by Bettina Renner

A Catholic cemetery in Dresden. A grey and weathered gravestone protrudes from the snow. At its foot stands a small American flag. The inscription on the old stone reveals who was laid to rest here in1914: Edward Two Two, Sioux chief. Strange. How did one of the Sioux Indians, whose home is North America, end up in Dresden of all places? And why was he buried here?Bettina Renner pursues this question, rummaging in archives and travelling to South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation to visit Edward Two Two's old homeland and his descendants. Gradually she comes closer to the answer of why the Lakota Sioux Edward Two Two, who in real life was never a chief, was determined that his final resting place be in Dresden soil.