From 1968,
the year, in which everything is questioned,
for example Why should the Olympic flame
during the Winter Olympics burn only in Grenoble?
Why not in Hamburg as well?
It is much more urgently needed there.
A delegation with a beard steals the fire and brings it back in February 1960
as a trophy to the first Hamburg film company, assembled
around the Olympic fire in a store on Berliner Straße.
A group of young cineastes
Independent of censorship measures
and from the establishment they make radical films.
The other cinema is born.
At the self-organized film school Hamburg
these films will be will be shown together for the first time.
A narrator, which for itself the film.
Experienced once again.
All of them
can be found here.
123. 456.
It is agreed that the established Film culture must be refrained from.
With innovative films and a new form of organization.
The filmmakers form a cooperative.
The first film cooperative in Germany
is, that has to be documented.
The Hamburg group gathers in the Brüder Straße for the legendary
Founding father of cinematography.
It was the foundation of a
just a commercial rental organization.
Well, that was a consideration of an interest group,
which were also politically similar.
The coop is basically simply to be seen as distribution, nothing else.
It was actually something like a finger exercise
for an upcoming way of making movies.
Whereby one does not commit to feature films.
It was more of a promise.
Even if it does not now finds a direct link,
then there is nevertheless from this liberation movement
of the 60s something which will certainly be taken up again.
And for that this Hamburg time a small time capsule.
Here is a brand new
Vinyl leather jacket, proud.
I thought Hamburg back then was in the 60s
probably the most interesting city in Germany.
There was in Hamburg at that time an atmosphere of departure that was very, very,
very broad and where we also had had cross-connections with the theaters,
so where from music to literature such a
Before sixty-eight
Grumbling was what in Hamburg
was more audible than probably in all other German cities.
The attempt to suddenly in Hamburg.
To realize something which until now has only been possible in large metropolises
of culture, at that time mainly Paris and London.
New York came only after 65 at all
into view and Northern Germany seemed
in this, in these symphonies to be somewhat underexposed.
There was actually quite amazed and proud and said at that time
Well, of course, there's nothing in Hamburg.
There it is especially noticeable and the mentality
of the Hamburgers is still very delicate in this respect.
One was about, one knew that one was somehow on the left.
Where exactly, one didn't know.
One knew that this terrible climate, this Adenauer
Erhard climate, which was suffocating, One had to do something against it.
One also knew that.
Much more we knew at that time.
Not essential was that there somehow sought, that somehow
goes, that it somehow goes on What do you do, where do you end up?
And so on.
From which people do you say goodbye and where do you look for new things somewhere?
And the radicality was
an essential part of the program.
Because being radical, so to speak, was
a question of hygiene, was an ideal.
There were actually two, how to say, two bellwethers.
One was Helmut Herbst and the other was me.
And that was a very fruitful contrast.
Because Helmut autumn
was a very committed leftist who paid attention to the contents, so to speak
and who also promoted the new philosophy against these encrusted
and old-fashioned structures in the Federal Republic.
And I wanted to create economic independence
and therefore was sort of a commercial ruse.
So I always paid attention or tried to pay attention to it,
That the thing was commercially right,
that the money we spent was earned beforehand.
And these two currents have cross-fertilized each other.
So in so far we were also the two elders,
so about ten years younger than me And said So, go on.
So we were actually the engines, can you say it?
I am Thomas Struck.
My film is titled The Warm Spot.
The scenario has Helmut Kohl with
Helmut Kohl and Thomas Struck play.
And as a guest, I am.
The camera makes Christian again
and the sound is made by Doctor Joint
and Mrs. Bode cuts it.
But maybe this is not cut at all yet.
But we'll see in the movie.
But Barbara.
Self has
that, and.
We were both enrolled as psychology students enrolled.
And for me psychology was So it was a pure alibi.
Study, because I wanted to do film.
And an academy existed at the moment only in Munich,
and I wasn't interested in that one.
And I remember very well that we had never seen each other and Helmut
somehow came down the stairs and said Ah.
Hello Thomas, Uh, do you actually know that I. White,
how to exactly make the three-dimensional film.
Can?
And then I said yes, me too.
And that was actually so our meeting
always.
This is yes, I think we fit together.
And I think that's what
I mean.
I am not as harmless as you think.
Well, I would but these.
Chance
and there an unidentifiable figure
makes politically unidentifiable, so heaven and hell,
Game, bounce,
what is the political relevance of this?
And so? I was always asked about that.
I never made it, although it was actually easy
would have been, me really on this question Where is the political relevance?
To come up with an answer.
I never had a right answer, not a clear answer.
Could have been figured out, but actually not the problem
been.
But I never did.
With my early stuff I was labeled as a surrealist.
Then I thought I'll get out of it again.
Good, the surrealists have
also took a different look at the world somehow an oblique look.
But this oblique look does not necessarily have to turn into surrealism
end.
That was one of many points at that time.
So for these things, that are called underground
were, of course, New York was the primary place.
And that created a critical mass, out of which just very amazing
new forms emerged have arisen, which are still everywhere
with relatively high
Speed have emitted.
And that then hit a whole series of places in Europe.
Hamburg just happened to be
also ten, twelve people gathered,
of which some of them were prepared for it like nothing.
So seen the movies and made a formidable early work
With 23, 24 quite insane short films.
And that then radiated out further, so that I then also had here a kind of
of critical Mass has been able to come together,
which was stronger than in other cities in Germany and also
than in most other cities in Europe.
Kurt Rosenthal,
Graduate of the Academy of Arts in Hamburg, realized
together with graphic artist Werner Höfer his first animated films.
No.
Topics Sex,
Freedom and Free Don Juan,
Leo, so, that was for me an insanely exciting time
and an artistic development which I think is very important.
And we were all more or less self-taught.
By, that I bought the hammer
and worked with it, also for the NDR
I became more and more professional
From this big world.
Taught I have taken.
Even with film I had relative success, while with graphics and painting
I didn't have so much success, I immediately remained fascinated with film.
Of course.
I am actually more of a tinkerer.
Walter Seidler came to Hamburg as a landscape gardener,
made the film Red Flags there and became an important co-founder
and organizer of the Hamburg group.
That was an organizer by design,
which led to the fact that I was also a production manager or
similar had learned quite quickly.
And others had at that time had no desire at all to do something like that.
So how to me then often to
Barbara called.
She shot the film with 50 actors Grabbing my toe.
She poses as an actress and collaborates on many of the group's films.
Her trail gets lost.
Probably she dies of an overdose,
as the photographer of the group, Egon Teske, puts it.
Was it too big for this world?
There was Eric on a photo together with Klaus Wildenhain.
Why this was done in Hamburg?
It is certainly a coincidence of many factors, which
as far as I can overlook, plays I think, a certain role,
that the English were the occupying power were here, that the English
several publications, radio, but also newspapers were established here,
that Hamburg became a media city,
which it never was, in the sense that to the merchant city
these people came, who brought out the mirror
at that time the world And secondly, that Hamburg always,
I do not have to tell you, has this famous sober atmosphere,
which I think is very productive,
when you are in that profession.
This sober, against
you have to work against.
The light mists that come up, the gray
and not the colorful, that is such a completely different
constructed atmospheric city.
It as what I have seen in Berlin, Munich.
and above all I feel emotionally and sentimental
very strongly connected to the city, because it has been possible for me here
has been possible for me to
so elementary expression to find, that I could only find.
So for me the documentary was made here in Hamburg
with all the influences that became possible here
and which I could realize here.
I did not become a crank, which I certainly have a tendency to,
but I could
somehow bring it into reality
Or.
1964 Hamburg, New Town
When you start to produce own films.
He is looking for a new production facility.
I drove around the city by car and looked for a studio.
And there were standing in front of this store on Brüder Straße there was a crowd of people
And there was just the owner of the store.
A pawnbroker had just been beaten to death been beaten to death.
So the body was sort of still warm, and
then this store was free.
So very close.
And then?
Then I asked.
That was very picturesque, went and
there hang shelves with all kinds of old clothes.
And that's what the prosecutor's office or somebody picked it up.
They found stuff And then I rented that
And so I'm on the street.
So by chance.
One had there a studio one and smaller a small store
expanded, as a production facility
with very small office also there.
And that in turn had
Contact with some other people, who had already
had worked with film.
That was such a center then also, where therefore productions took place, discussions.
And Grassmann started as a film lover in Hamburg, who had a very
small cinema.
And he sort of gave all the people,
who somehow belonged to it, a roof, gave the place.
And in the winter was, there were cannons in it And that was warm, and that was his
contribution, from which he has always had quite snappy Secretaries had,
just in the brothers street, in this funny,
wonderful, banana-shaped street.
And that's where friendships develop.
And those then actually led to a consolidation
and institutionalization of this group Hamburg filmmakers.
And there we found ourselves
badly served, badly
be recognized, no standing at all in the city.
Film was kind of so port, yes, Overseas Import Export.