Films by Simon Quack

Germany 2024, 111 min
by Katharina Pethke

The ensemble of buildings that makes up the maternity clinic and art school in Hamburg where the director taught is the starting point for this sober interrogation of how motherhood and career can be combined based on three generations of German women.How much does a place reveal about its history? How much can forbears and their descendants know about one another? And how much continuity is contained within progress? When Katharina Pethke became a professor at Hamburg’s University of Fine Arts, it set in motion a process of reflection and research. Before, she had studied there, and so too had her mother and grandmother. Each of the women believed they were breaking new ground and yet, consciously or unconsciously, through stance or in protest, continued to carry on a legacy. This essay film examines the three generations caught between social determination and artistic ambition, self-will and motherhood, production and reproduction. The university building and its sole sculpture by a woman artist purchased by urban planner Fritz Schumacher, “Frauenschicksal” (Women’s Fate), become a mirror as well as showcase for enduring ambivalences. A virtuosic and astute work from an established filmmaker, Reproduktion explores questions of feminine and artistic identity through the lens of Pethke’s personal experience, interweaving her family biography with the architectural history of the art and media campus. [74 BERLINALE – Forum]

Germany 2021, 90 min
by Serpil Turhan

KÖY (Turkish for village) is about the longing for home, for belonging and the freedom of the self. Three women from three generations are united by their Kurdish roots. All of them originate from villages in eastern Turkey and live in Berlin. Against the background of the political changes in Turkey, Serpil Turhan held intense discussions over a period of three years. KÖY captures each woman’s emotional world and shows fragments of the ordinary. Hêvîn, Saniye and Neno do not meet, but their stories are linked when it comes to self-determination and belonging.

Germany 2019, 154 min
by Bernd Schoch

A sprawling mycelium. The starry sky over the Romanian Carpathians. The first two images introduce the dimensions that are at the core of Olanda: Details and fine structures on the one hand, constellations and the bigger picture on the other. The focus is on a seasonal asset of the area - the mushroom. Amongst people it is the foragers who are nearest to them and the focus of the film is on them: on walks through the forest, in the tent camp, during car rides and conversations. From here it follows the rhizome-like ramifications that continue to branch out in the form of money: to local and international merchants, to an impromptu shoe market in a clearing, to gambling among colleagues. The film tells of these trading cycles by assuming a mushroom-like structure without ever losing its centre of thought. Beyond an analysis of economic structures, however, it is also the sensual document of a rhythm of everyday life in the forest, as experienced by foragers as the first link in the recycling chain. In the cinema, it can be experienced as an audiovisual mushroom-trip into the magical world of the Carpathian forests.

Germany 2017, 84 min
by Marco Kugel, Simon Quack

Every summer, when the major football teams fly their star athletes to training grounds in sunny locations, some other players meet on a football field in Duisburg. Even though there are professional footballers, they are all unemployed. And they look desperately for a job. The Other Fields sheds a new and completely different light on the mythologies of contemporary football. The achievement-oriented society does not allow too many dreams even though it is exactly dreams that are sold to audiences everywhere. Footballers looking for a breakthrough but living constantly on the verge of failure are exchanged at a fast rate. The Other Fields shows how the entertainment and sports system fits and basically is just another cog of the capitalistic production system.With: Dietmar Hirsch, Maximilian Riedmüller, Philipp Bönig, Anel Hodzic

Germany 2011
by Bernd Schoch

The Schlippenbach Trio (Paul Lovens, Evan Parker, Alexander von Schlippenbach) exist since forty years and they are part of the european Freejazz history. Each year in december they go on the 'Winterreise' to play their sound of divergence, catharsis & explosion. The film BUT THE WORD DOG DOESN'T BARK is shoot over the period of four years at the Jazzclub Karlsruhe. Each year the camera focuses in a single frame shot on one of the players.In 2007 on Paul Lovens (drums), in 2008 on Evan Parker (reeds), in 2009 on Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano). In the last year of the performance shooting, in 2010, a handheld singleframe shot combines the improvisation of the three individuals in one picture. BUT THE WORD DOG DOESN'T BARK questions the possibility of transforming sound into pictures.