Generation ’89 – Growing Up in the Year of Change
Generation `89 - Erwachsenwerden im Wendejahr
WINTER FILM AWARDS 2015 NOMINEE - SOCIALLY RELEVANT FILM, NOMINEE - BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM, NOMINEE - BEST DOCUMENTARY
2014
Germany
71 mins
German
Documentary Film Competition
| Anke Ertner | |
| Anke Ertner | |
It is the untold story of the reunification – the year of change from the perspective of six teenagers from East Germany. They jointly remember what happened 25 years ago. At that time, in the Autumn of ’89, they are too young to fit into the usual grid of ‘stasi victim’ or ‘East German nostalgics’, too old to simply grow up in the new Germany as if nothing had happened. Together they once again travel back to a period of time that they experienced so differently than the rest of the world thinks. Anke and her friends were between 14 and 18 years old when the Berlin Wall fell. In the transition from child to adult, the cornerstones of their existence are put into question. They see in disbelief how their entire life is abruptly declared invalid. Generation ’89 waives the usual images and moments of the year of change. Even stronger is the effect of the poetic motifs of cameraman Robert Coellen and the super-8 material from private archives. Generation ’89 – Growing Up in the Year of Change is the long overdue different perspective on the fall of the Berlin wall and the German reunification.
About the Director
Anke Ertner was born in 1975 in Großenhain close to Dresden. She grew up in Strausberg near Berlin, which in the GDR was the most important location of the Army. Anke Ertner started her career as a journalist, first on radio, later in television. She produced her first major documentary, Generation ‘89, independently as a special challenge: Generation ’89 is the very personal story of her friends, her family and herself
Awards
2014 Crystal Palace Internationale Film Festival (London) – Nominated for “Best Documentary”
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT77oVwWKsM
