realistfilm

The views of female employees of large factories in a country that no longer exists. Pride & Attitude. A title appropriately settled at the intersection of Kluge/Negt and Jane Austen. The protagonists in Gerd Kroske’s latest survey of the past and the state of affairs in the context and afterlife of East Germany are concerned with both – labour power and questions of women, as in questions about possibilities as a woman to work, participate actively in social life and achieve self-realisation. Or the question of why men take these issues for granted, ultimately regardless of the political system. “The mantle of history blows in favour of those with enough breath to determine the direction of the wind,” states Christa Wolf in a quote at the start of the film. Woman, East Germany, West Germany: Kroske creates an experimental set-up with split screens and asks, “What was once gained – what is lost?” The film presents U-matic footage of female industrial workers in the early 1990s shot by Leipzig’s Kanal X to document real dismantling and layoffs. An archival find. Today, the same women speak again about the loss of their hard-won sovereignty. A multi-channel film.