Films by Joanna Piechotta

Germany 2021, 88 min
by Christian Bäucker

In his film HEIMATKUNDE, the director returns to the school building of his childhood in East Germany. For almost 25 years it lay empty, seemingly waiting to be revived. The remains of socialist education are pasted over, hidden, forgotten.In tentative interviews with contemporary witnesses we are gradually coming nearer to the systematic manipulation of the child’s mind. In this way, it becomes understandable how the dictatorship functioned and turned into the commonplace “that’s just the way it is”, which still exists today and thwarts any criticism of and debate about history.However, overcoming the German “duality” remains impossible without looking back and reappraising this form of education that generated the authoritarian mind.

Germany, Austria 2018, 85 min
by Lilian Franck

We lack knowledge when it comes to our health. There are a very few institutions we can rely on for competence and independence in this area. Doctors, of course, and the Ministry of Health, as well. They, in turn, rely on the World Health Organization. What if the trust and responsibility that billions of people around the world relinquish and transfer, are not justified?This personal investigation tells the story of how the WHO has been infiltrated and influenced by industry, and how the member States misuse the UN-organization for their own national economic interests. Whether dealing with the tobacco scandal, swine flu or Fukushima - the WHO plays a daunting role. It lacks funding, power and transparency. And its decisions end up helping the pharmaceutical companies and the nuclear energy industry more than the victims. The WHO was created as a guardian of world health, but it has become the plaything of individual interests. Lilian Franck shows a frightening portrayal of our present society, in which governmental politics is becoming obsolete.