KALTE HEIMAT

The region of East Prussia, under German rule for 700 years, was handed over to the Soviet Union at the end of WWII. It became Kaliningradska Oblast, a Russian stretch of land between Lithuania and Poland. For most of us however, it was just a terra incognita, somewhere far away. Volker Koepp had tried early on to record these landscapes with their raw beauty described by the poet Johannes Bobrowski. But at that time Koepp only got as far as Lithuania, as the region was closed to foreigners.

After the breakdown of the socialist system, Volker Koepp and his crew were finally able to travel around in the austere countryside. They met people from all nationalities who live in peace with each other despite the many political upheavals they have gone through: people from every imaginable area of the ex-Soviet Union who came here after the war; Jews from Poland; Germans from Siberia; Germans who were able to stay after the war; and others revisiting their former homeland. Koepp listens with care and respect to the emotional, shattering life stories of the inhabitants for whom the last war is still present as an inner reality. It is a sensual film about a region at a crossroads, and its modest and wise people, as well as a picture of the migrations and movements of people during the 20^th century.

Award: Audience Award, Nyon 1995

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