Germany in Autumn (Deutschland im Herbst)
German with English subtitles
20 December 2019 | 20:00
Eight/Το Οκτώ, Politechniou 8, Athens, 10433
Directed by Heinrich Böll, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander
Kluge, Theo Hinz, Hans Peter Cloos, Maxmiliane Mainka, Edgar
Reitz, Katja Rupé, Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Schubert and
Bernhard Sinkel
The collectively made film “Germany in Autumn” (1978) is an extraordinary document of critical reflection on the crimes and traumas of nation. It grapples with the legacies of fascism and arrested de-Nazification, terror and state terror, the student movement and the Red Army Faction, and with the despairing turn to violence by the children of the perpetrating generation. Late 1977 is known as the German autumn; it was marked by a rapid sequence of events, including the kidnapping and murder of prominent industrialist and member of the Christian Democratic Union Hanns-Martin Schleyer, a known Nazi and member of the SS during WWII, as well as the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight full of tourists. These actions aimed at the release of RAF founders and leaders Andreas Baader, Gudrun Enslin, and Jean-Carl Raspe from Stammheim prison. The violence culminated in the controversial deaths of Baader, Enslin, and Raspe in their prison cells, and issues concerning their burial. The themes explored in different ways in what is collective work by prominent German directors, including Heinrich Böll, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge, Theo Hinz, Hans Peter Cloos, Maxmiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupé, Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Schubert and Bernhard Sinkel.
Making Now-Time is an initiative by critical theorist Gene Ray (HEAD, Geneva), artist and publisher Yiannis Papadopoulos (University of Patras, Omblos editions), musicologist and researcher Anna Papaeti (Panteion University), and artist Sarah De Wilde (Belgium).