Films by Grit Lemke

Germany 2023, 92 min
by Grit Lemke

What makes us who we are? In search of her own roots, the director explores an indigenous people in Germany: the Sorbs, the smallest Slavic people. Their language and culture are severely threatened by centuries of oppression. But a new generation no longer wants to accept this: They are committed to self-determination, come to terms with the trauma of losing their villages because of lignite mining or redefine being Sorbian as alternative, anti-fascist and feminist. And the German Anna becomes

Germany 2019, 98 min
by Grit Lemke

"My swing is in an enchanted garden, behind the railway embankment. Up in the air, on my swing, I see the trains, squeaking past day and night shedding black dust. They come out of the huge holes that gape between our villages. As a child, I think the whole world looks like this: Holes, with villages between, my swing in the middle. And the trains. They're coal trains." Gerhard Gundermann (1955–1998), singer-songwriter, poet and excavator operator in the Lusatian brown coal mines. In this region