Frauen in Berlin

A film from East Berlin, 1981, with an adventurous history of preservation. Having created an open, intimate atmosphere while interviewing other international students at the East German Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen’s halls of residence for OYOYO a year previously, Indian exchange student Chetna Vora now spoke to German native speakers, women in Berlin. Here too, remaining in their private realm was key to establishing a communicative setting in which unforced, unrehearsed, horizontal conversations could unfold. Kitchen chats mostly. A film in the form of a rough cut, sometimes with unedited sequences and long stretches of talking and listening, which – fortunately – preserves the traces of the associative and authentic. The women are from different milieus, from young to old. Real life as a woman in the GDR. Caretaking, having children and bringing them up, work, living, forming bonds, separating, loving. Rock ’n’ roll by the window. These revelations have survived because the film material was pilfered from university storage, projected on an improvised screen and filmed on VHS in turn, with the result now having been restored by the Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. (Christiane Büchner, Barbara Wurm)

Chetna Vora was born in Gujarat, India in 1958. She studied directing at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen Potsdam-Babelsberg from 1976 to 1982. Oyoyo was her graduation film. In 1983, she moved back to India together with her partner, filmmaker Lars Barthel, and their daughter Neelesha Barthel. Chetna Vora died in 1987.

Director Chetna Vora. Screenplay Chetna Vora. Cinematography Thomas Plenert. Editing Chetna Vora, Petra Heymann. Producer Anita Vandenherz. Production company Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR (Potsdam-Babelsberg, German Democratic Republic).

Films: 1978: Der neue Anfang (short film), Khamoshi (short film). 1980: Der Brief (short film), Oyoyo (documentary). 1981: Frauen in Berlin.