Alles andere zeigt die Zeit

When Andreas Voigt and Sebastian Richter were shooting in Leipzig in 1996, the skinhead Sven wanted to marry and settle down. The former punk Isabel tried to lead a middle-class life in Stuttgart. And the journalist Renate wanted to come to terms with her past as an IM (informal collaborator) of the Stasi and start a new life. The Leipzig cycle reaches as far back as 1986. The sixth part is structured by images of the run-down industrial quarter of Plagwitz which casually provide a visual context, especially for Renate's tragic story, that makes understanding possible. The film does not only show the qualities of the DEFA documentary school, such as recording social contexts through precise framing and an emphatic closeness to its protagonists, it's also a masterpiece of editing. Voigt masterfully combines material from the 25th year after the German reunification with images of the lethargy of the East, the departure of 89 and the arrival in the post-reunification age. Which was different from what the mainstream media narrative would have us believe. Voigt manages to the end to subvert expectations and familiar stereotypes again and again. There are no winners and losers; a lawyer from the East liquidates Western companies, and hope arises where you least expect it. The point is, as Isabel once put it, "to make life work." Not an "Eastern film" but a monumental panorama of its time. (Internationales Leipziger Festival für Dokumentar- und Animationsfilm)