MÄRKISCHE GESELLSCHAFT MBH

“500 million bricks were manufactured here, now they have ruined everything,“ comments one man sadly on the decline of the Brandenburg brick industry. Volker Koepp’s film from ‘year zero’ of German reunification takes him far from the political centres of Berlin and Bonn to observe the upheavals in the town of Zehdenik, a location of some of his earlier films. Here the big political events - monetary union and reunification - are pared down to the everyday. The Russians are pulling out, previous owners are surveying their former properties and the Deutschmark is coming. Volker Koepp listens to the people and their stories; he opens up their hearts. You can sense that this is both an end and an uncertain new beginning.