BERLIN-STETTIN

Volker Koepp’s latest film is personal, courageous, sad, hopeful, melancholy and then again joyful. The director travels through his memories to significant places from his personal life and his filmic achievements. He meets old school friends and protagonists from his earlier films. Consistently he ponders questions of home and identity and how wars and the passage of time can affect landscapes and people. The film is dedicated to his Mother, Thea Koepp (1914-2002), who was a refugee from Stettin. Volker Koepp spares us nothing: “the poor Mrs Koepp was caught by some men that night,” comments a woman, who back then was just a young girl, about her rape by Russian soldiers. This is a filmic essay about the consequences of war and of a country torn apart. It is a historical panorama that belongs in our cultural memory.