Films by Paul Oberle

Germany 2012, 90 min
by div

GOLDRUSH tells the story of the Treuhandanstalt - the most expensive experiment and the greatest white-collar-crime since Worldwar II. It’s a film about greed as the driving force of economic development. The trust agency 'Treuhand' was established to privatise the state owned enterprises of the GDR. Never before had there been an enterprise like the Treuhand that temporarily ran and speedily privatised 8,500 companies. With four million jobs at stake in East Germany, this was a novel and unique experiment and one under enormous pressure of time. It was doomed to fail. Over three million jobs were lost and 4.000 companies were closed. The Treuhand existed for 30 months. In this time it lost 250 million Marks a day - in the name of the Federal Republic. Furthermore, the Treuhand was defrauded out of at least 20 billion Marks. The scandal has never been entirely resolved and most of the perpetrators escaped prosecution or were never impeached. GOLDRUSH is not a historical piece - it is a film about the limitations of the social consensus. The film does not accuse, does not judge. It simply insists on the need to ask questions, even if the answers are not always conclusive.

Germany 2011, 97 min
by Annekatrin Hendel

Once with the Stasi, always with the Stasi? Once you were in the agent controller's grasp you could never escape - that's what they say, anyway. Writer Paul Gratzik was an unofficial informer for the GDR State Security Service for twenty years, broke with them in the 80's and exposed his identity. "Vaterlandsverräter" ("Traitors to the Fatherland") is a portrait of an exceptional man. On one hand it is a psychological profile of one of an extraordinarily paradoxical figure, a "man of extremes": satyr, seducer, radical and hermit. On the other hand it tells a story about the GDR, its critics and the Stasi of the kind that has never been told before in all the 20 years since the end of East Germany.

Germany 2004, 108 min
by Andres Veiel

Four acting students are the focus of Andres Veiel’s long-term observational documentary. We meet Stephanie, Karina, Constanza and Prodromos while they are preparing for their acting school auditions. The selection procedure takes months; it is a trying, nerve-racking time spent vacillating between hope and anxiety. All four make it into the school, but their initial euphoria about commencing their studies – including group exercises, role play and obligatory fencing lessons – is soon followed by deflation in the face of merciless criticism of even the slightest shortcoming by their tutors. In this way, their passion for their chosen vocation is constantly put the test.The four students couldn’t be more different: Karina appears to have very few problems; Stephanie, however, has to endure several auditions. Constanze immerses herself in her roles, whilst Prodromos always seems to be at odds with himself, his roles and his dreams. Andres Veiel: “We observe the struggles of the protagonists; how they try not to get stressed out or lose sight of themselves by worrying about the discrepancy between their expectations and their abilities. We accompany them on their search for identity and an image, but we also follow their progress towards maturity as actors and as individuals. Then, at the end of their studies, comes the real test: trying to gain a foothold in the profession. All of a sudden, they find themselves faced with a new set of questions. What is the nature of success? How high is the price for achievement? And what has become of their original dreams and aims, seven years on?”

Germany 1996, 96 min
by Andres Veiel

Rudi, Tilman and Thilo are dead – of their own free will. In the provinces of Swabia, Andres Veiel faces up to the tragedy of his former classmates and comes to the disturbing conclusion that every suicide ensnares its survivors in an intricate web of guilt and self-pity.