Films by Irma Heinig

2024, 94 min
by Paul Raatz

Demographic change hits the small town of Loitz [lø:ts] in Western Pomerania with full force. Since 1990, the once thriving community has lost a third of its population – by 2030, it will be half. A future-project led by the Berlin couple Annika and Rolando now aims to counteract the town's demise by creating a place for encounters. A group of music enthusiasts is also trying to see the vacancy as an opportunity and set up a festival. Does it need external impulses like these or has a decisive process of encounter already begun? Infinite Place tells the story of people who fill a dying town with their lives – a cinematic examination of a development that can be observed in many places in Germany and around the world.

2019, 73 min
by Therese Koppe

Erika and Tine are 81 and have been a couple for 40 years. The two women live on a farm in Brandenburg they restored themselves and look back on eventful lives. In the GDR they both had to fight for personal and artistic freedom and struggled daily with socialism, not to mention its actually existing contradictions. Unlike other GDR creative artists who cracked under the rejection of their art and ideas, they both take a humorous look back today at the manifold documents of their lives, contextualising and contradicting the numerous Stasi files with their own memories, photos, paintings, sculptures and texts. They use the conversations with the young director to take a close look at their own (GDR) past, but also the post-reunification period, the present and future.What can art do in times of social political challenge? How can one stay true to oneself, art and one’s ideals? Where are women still confronted by structural discrimination today? How can social grievances be resolved together? By staying naturally close to its protagonists, the film manages to achieve an enchantingly lucid narrative about freedom, autonomy, creativity and sociality – and, last but not least, a marvellous ode to love. (DOK Leipzig, Luc-Carolin Ziemann)An Honourable Mention goes to A QUIET RESISTANCE by Therese Koppe. The touching portrait of two women, creative artists in the GDR, is a memorable affirmation of how a social niche can evolve into a space of individual freedom. (Jury Statement, DOK Leipzig)