Kassel Dokfest makes a chance discovery and the Kassel trilogy KASSEL, ANNÉES 30: UNE TRILOGIE ALLEMANDE (KASSEL, 30S: A GERMAN TRILOGY) by French filmmaker Catherine Bernstein celebrates its German premiere after almost 30 years.
The
presentation of the two films will be followed by a discussion with Catherine
Bernstein in German language. On
Sunday, November 17 at 2:30 pm, part 3 of the trilogy can be seen at Gloria
Kino, followed by a moderated discussion: “Les Absentes (The Absent Ones)”.
By way of interviews with the (girls-) class, the first part of the trilogy focuses on the grandmother’s generation. The grandmother and her Kassel classmates are about 26 years old by the end of the 1930s. The film deals with inner-family guilt, memory and repression in an impressively open and sometimes difficult to bear manner.
… >>>Catherine Bernstein’s mother and her classmates were born in 1937 and also went to school in Kassel. Part 2 of the trilogy focuses on the mother's generation.
The interviews in both filmy strikingly show the differences in empathy, ability to reflect and activity to repress between the different women, but also between the generations. Through the editing and her interview voice, the filmmaker provides a framework of knowledge about what happened; her empathy with the victims of National Socialism, including a large part of her father's family, becomes clear, as does her courageous curiosity about the thoughts and feelings of the interviewees.
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