BOROWITSCHI(Dir.: Viola Stephan, Writ.: Viola Stephan, Victor Kossakovsky, Cinematography: Victor Kossakovsky, Germany 1996) is representative of many small towns in the Russian provinces. The film follows the army as it guards preserves stored in the monastery cellar and observes the physical labor involved in felt boot production. Interspersed are the results of the parliamentary election in Borovichi, serving as a reminder that, alongside everyday life—the microcosm of the province—the voice of the Moscow parliament is and will continue to be part of the future.
DAMENWAHL (Ladies’ Choice – Scenes from the Civilized West, Dir./Screenplay: Viola Stephan, Germany 1999) portrays six female friends caught between past life decisions and their present-day routines—caring for children, professional lives, and social events. Yet, as always in Stephan’s work, these moments are imbued with larger questions: What has become of women now that equality and general prosperity have taken hold in the country? The protagonists are solitary figures. In this film, we experience them, so to speak, in the versions of themselves they have chosen.
DIE REISE VON PETERSBURG NACH MOSKAU (The Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, Dir./Screenplay: Viola Stephan, Germany 1991) is based on the 1790 novel of the same name by Alexander Radishchev—a literary voice speaking out against the oppression of the people, which was denigrated as a threat in the Tsarist Empire. Two hundred years later, and just a few months before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Viola Stephan sets out with a small team to follow precisely these same routes between St. Petersburg and Moscow.
KRIEGSENDE (War's End, Dir./Screenplay: Viola Stephan, Germany 1992) examines the attempts of various people to find their footing in Berlin amid the shifting political and historical conditions of the early 1990s. A film about newcomers, those who have settled in, and those saying goodbye—and a film about the disorientation in a scarred city where memories of war are part of everyday life.
ŚLASK (Silesia, Dir./Screenplay: Viola Stephan, Germany 1994) Stephan searches for the Silesia that was excluded from German and Polish consciousness during the Cold War. Romanticized in retrospect by refugees and displaced persons, the filmmaker begins shooting a film in the village of Milków in Lower Silesia to explore the question of what story the people there themselves would tell about Silesia.
SREDA – WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 1961 (Dir.: Victor Kossakovsky, D/GB/RUS/FI/FR/DK 1997) marks the director’s birthday. Kossakovsky encounters people born on the same day—preschool teachers, dentists, women in the delivery room. He observes men in backyards, train engineers, bus drivers, and hospital patients. Central to the film is a view of history that examines people and their lives side by side and discovers the possibilities of life through the interplay of their biographies, with Kossakovsky also searching for connections determined by chance.
