The stories of these short films take place in former militarized zones who slowly get reclaimed by nature. Remains tell stories of former lives, long forgotten family stories and a crazy, wild, female ghost in costume. (Filmarchiv Austria / METRO)
SOLDATEN SOLDATEN
(GER 1993, 14 min, b/w, ger. OV, 35mm)
Screenplay, Direction, Cinematography, Editing: Elfi Mikesch
Text: Leonardo da Vinci
with: Benno Ifland, Klaus Behnken.
"Soldiers Soldiers" takes place at the barracs. Military presence shaped the landscape and the abandoned place reminds of an invisible museum. Nature slowly reclaims the scenery. The buildings rot away. Shown through architecture, the hermetic spell, a form of human organization, calling itself war craft.
GEFÄHRLICHER ORT
(GER 1994, 15 min, b/w, ger. OV, 35mm)
Screenplay, Direction, Cinematography: Elfi Mikesch
with: Leo Wittrien, Annalisa Adami, Benno Ifland, Christoph Schlingensief, Alice Treff.
The boy tells his story. He lives near a factory at the edge of a village with his mother and his father. This is how they call this place. It's the dangerous place, where chemical weapons were developed during World War Two. On a hot summer day, the family gets haunted. By danger, jealousy, madness and the past.
DER FLUSS
(GER 1994, 25 min, b/w, ger. OV, 35mm)
Screenplay, Direction, Cinematography: Elfi Mikesch
with: Leonie Terfort, Alice Treff, Benno Ifland, Joachim Tomaschewsky, Leo Wittrien, Sophie Löwe.
The riverbank holds secret of a terrible past.
BOMBENWERFER
(GER 1995, 21 min, b/w, ger. OV, 35mm)
Screenplay, Direction, Cinematography: Elfi Mikesch
with: Angela Christlieb, Gad Klein, Sophie Löwe, Heinz Emigholz, Oliver Broumis, Jochen Nickel.
The story gets told by the father of a boy: "My father wrote letters from the front. He didn't return from war. During a dream, i saw hundreds of thousand of letters falling from the sky. My boy knows nothing about World War Two." The letters represent memory and trauma. Nobody talks about it. The boy knows nothing about the legacy of all wars. This story takes place at a former military airport and its surroundings.
