A very personal essay made as a dialogue between the film- makers Anthea Kennedy and Karl Schedereit about the Stand der Dinge in cinema. The film is constructed as a collage from different angles. In the first instance, there are conversations between Kennedy, an English film-maker of Jewish-German origins, and Schedereit, an older German film-maker who fought in the army of the Third Reich, about their plans of making a feature together entitled Berlin – Memory of Tomorrow. They visit to the actors Erland Josephson, Katrin Cartlidge and Gisela Müller to this end and work in different places (London, Berlin, Munich, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Venice and Olbia on Sardinia) on their project, places that each get their own role in the film. A number of ordinary people from these places – a car mechanic, a chef, a housewife – also each get minor roles. Producer Hans Werner (the title of the film refers to his attempts to interest Hollywood in the project) scouts Los Angeles from a helicopter while watching the Oscar ceremony live on TV. One last element in the collage is the presence of the Rumanian philosopher who works in England Jan Balanescu, who tells Kennedy about his theories. This idiosyncratic and autobiographical film is beautifully shot on 35mm – or, as Kennedy suggested: ‘it’s like an expensive home-movie’. The festival is also screening the short film Betrifft: liebes Deutschland by Kennedy & Schedereit.
