Clubraum
Aufführung auf dem B.I.F.F. – Independent Film Festival, Biberach.
Crew:
Kamera: Andreas Gockel
Ton / Tonmischung: Jochen Dorn
Buch / Regie: Martina Jungfleisch (Hiller von Gaertringen)
Mit:
Johanna Feyerabend
Hildegard Findert
Hildegard Freytag
Ursula Klinke
Ingeborg Koschmann
Lilli Nowack
Dora Popp
Hedwig Radtke
Lisbeth Rickert
Johanna Sellenthin
Gerda Strecker
Irmelin Strasser
Hubertus Tittel
In the summer of 2002 during my research about the Alexanderplatz I met an elderly lady who had worked as a police officer in the early Forties. Because her story seemed interesting to me and waiting to find out more about it I decided to visit the almost 80 year old lady in her home. Here I learnt the reasons of her disputable choice of profession in the „Third Reich“ and also about the environment she inhabits now, a Senior Citizens‘ Hostel right in the „hip“ centre of Berlin, a scene usually dominated by young people.
I mostly met Frau Nowack in the „Club“ where some of the „well-aged“ ladies meet to have coffee together and chat about the „old days“. Over a certain period of time I attended to their „clubmeets“ on a regular basis. That`s when I met some of the other seniors as well.
They, too, would tell me about their at first quite simple and seemingly unspectacular sounding lives.
In the stories the events of the last century are relived the way the women experienced and perceived them. The Facsism, the War, the expelling from their homes, the DDR Socialism, the Reunification of Germany all happen again. From the perspective of the women those times seem to have been endured rather than actively shaped by them. One just happened to be there batteling to make it, and the circumstances did not allow for their wishes for life to be any different.
For some of the biographies presented in „the club“ documentary I put bits of snipes together, contrasted, whereas I left others standing by themselves always trying to capture the atmosphere in the hostel at the same time.
Once can feel the troubles of ageing and the timely limit of life itself. But despite all the bitterness and the feeling of always having received trouble from the twentieth century those women hang on to their memories, their togetherness and their own life.