Želimir Žilnik
Seit den 1960er Jahren erfasst Želimir Žilnik (*1942 in Niš) in seinen Kurz-, Dokumentar-, Spiel-, und Essayfilmen entscheidende Umbrüche seines Heimatlandes Jugoslawien (heute Serbien) und darüber hinaus. Vom sozialistischen Staat unter Tito über die Bundesrepublik der 1970er Jahre bis hin zu den Balkankriegen der 1990er reflektiert sein mittlerweile über fünfzig Filme umfassendes Oeuvre die kulturellen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen verschiedener Gesellschaften. Kritisch und stets radikal unabhängig offenbart er die Mechanismen von Ausgrenzung und Unterdrückung. Ein besonderer Fokus seiner Filme liegt dabei auf Fragen der Migration.
artwork
Inventur – Metzstraße 11 (Inventory – Metzstraße 11), 1975
Video, 9 min
In his short film “Inventur – Metzstraße 11”, Želimir Žilnik creates a striking portrait of an international, multicultural shared housing community in Munich in 1975. One by one, 30 residents of a rental building go on camera, on the building’s stairs, to tell about their lives. Many of them have come to what was then West Germany as “guest workers”. Their home countries include Italy, Greece, Turkey, and other places with which Germany had signed labor recruitment agreements starting in 1955. In an ironic allusion to the statistical stocktaking procedures implemented by the authorities, Žilnik’s camera documents the subjects’ names, nationalities, and living and working conditions. But it is the people themselves who take stock of their situations and determine the length, content, and language of their filmed appearances. In this way, we learn much more than a bureaucratic file could tell us, hearing about the residents’ fears and hopes and the feelings of foreignness that follow them through their daily lives as immigrants in Germany.
videoclip
Želimir Žilnik
Seit den 1960er Jahren erfasst Želimir Žilnik (*1942 in Niš) in seinen Kurz-, Dokumentar-, Spiel-, und Essayfilmen entscheidende Umbrüche seines Heimatlandes Jugoslawien (heute Serbien) und darüber hinaus. Vom sozialistischen Staat unter Tito über die Bundesrepublik der 1970er Jahre bis hin zu den Balkankriegen der 1990er reflektiert sein mittlerweile über fünfzig Filme umfassendes Oeuvre die kulturellen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen verschiedener Gesellschaften. Kritisch und stets radikal unabhängig offenbart er die Mechanismen von Ausgrenzung und Unterdrückung. Ein besonderer Fokus seiner Filme liegt dabei auf Fragen der Migration.
artwork
Inventur – Metzstraße 11 (Inventory – Metzstraße 11), 1975
Video, 9 min
In his short film “Inventur – Metzstraße 11”, Želimir Žilnik creates a striking portrait of an international, multicultural shared housing community in Munich in 1975. One by one, 30 residents of a rental building go on camera, on the building’s stairs, to tell about their lives. Many of them have come to what was then West Germany as “guest workers”. Their home countries include Italy, Greece, Turkey, and other places with which Germany had signed labor recruitment agreements starting in 1955. In an ironic allusion to the statistical stocktaking procedures implemented by the authorities, Žilnik’s camera documents the subjects’ names, nationalities, and living and working conditions. But it is the people themselves who take stock of their situations and determine the length, content, and language of their filmed appearances. In this way, we learn much more than a bureaucratic file could tell us, hearing about the residents’ fears and hopes and the feelings of foreignness that follow them through their daily lives as immigrants in Germany.