Winter Adé, Helke Misselwitz

Carte Blanche: Bas Devos

Winter Adé, Helke Misselwitz, East Germany, 1989, 116 min

Officially rejected, “Winter adé” was screened in competition at the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival in 1988 and received the Silver Dove. Now the film classic by the master pupil of Heiner Carow appears for the first time in a richly appointed restored version.

A train journey through the German Democratic Republic combines interviews with very different women. From Zwickau to Rügen, Helke Misselwitz approaches her interlocutors with empathy and attention, getting to know their everyday lives, their problems and their aspirations. Among others, she meets two young punks, a worker in a briquette factory, a Berlin economist and an 85-year-old man. Another woman is currently celebrating her diamond wedding anniversary. The everyday portraits, realistic and poetic, form a diverse kaleidoscope of memories, desires and frustrations that vividly describe life and moods in the GDR a year before its collapse.