Clemens Wilhelm & Joakim Blattmann
DIE LINIE

Clemens Wilhelm walks along the entire former German-German border. He follows the former death strip, today’s nature reserve “The Green Belt“, with his camera. The 1.400 km route takes him from the Czech border to the Baltic Sea in two months.

After every 15 minutes of walking, Clemens Wilhelm stops to take a picture: the West on the left, the East on the right, in the middle of the picture the former border patrol road. He continues across the whole country in this way, stopping every 15 minutes to document the absent border.

In 975 images and 67 minutes, the viewer of this immersive and hypnotic film travels all over Germany, along the whole former border line.

A soundtrack by Joakim Blattmann that consists of a musical composition of processed original sound recordings from the border accompanies the images.

The German-German border is a fascinating non-place. Hardly anyone knows it from their own experience or has traveled along it, but almost all Germans have crossed it at least once. It still exists in the collective memory and in the collective imagination of all Germans.

The German Reunification is an unfinished process even after nearly 30 years. Also globally, walls as a political tool are not a relic of the past and the Cold War but continue to be present in the political realm: the EU is fencing itself in, Britain is closing itself off, and the US president plans to build a wall to Mexico, etc.

Künstlerhaus Lauenburg

Start: 7 pm

The production of DIE LINIE was supported by a Stiftung Kunstfonds One-Year Working Grant.

DIE LINIE | Clemens Wilhelm & Joakim Blattmann | Trailer