GERD KROSKE “STORIES IN LAYERS, THE FILM “VOKZAL – TERMINUS BREST”
D 1994 90′
Lecture by Gerd Kroske in the context of the IBK Lecture Series WS 21/22 organized by the studio Art and Film.
The seminar explores possibilities of telling history in documentary films.
“My film Terminus Brest was completed in 1994. That was 49 years after the end of WWII. How can history be captured on film today in 90 minutes without coming across as cataloguing and inventorying? The film works with two opposing levels of place and time. The place is a train station and the time covers the upheavals of the 20th century. Several wars passed through this place and this is inscribed in the people there, as can be seen. In Brest this epoch could be told like an uncovering of layered deposits. How can this place of a railroad station be connected with the historically relevant moments as an example in the film?” (GK)