VILLAGE LOVE
A film by Pamela Meyer-Arndt / Cinema 80 Minutes/ MDR / TV Editor Beate Schönfeldt / Kulturstiftung des Bundes / Defa Stiftung/ DOP Peter Badel / Sound Jürgen Schönhoff / Montage Gudrun Steinbrück/ Composers Marius Schneider & Cornelius Renz / Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion/ 2010
The documentary VILLAGE LOVE portrays everyday existence in the small Thuringia village of Berka over the last 60 years. The local miller’s son, Ludwig Schirmer, photographed his village’s daily life before moving on to become an advertising executive. His photos of Berka possess an aura of stunning authenticity. His daughter Ute Mahler and her husband Werner Mahler, both previously known for photography prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain, continued this photographic documentation. The result is a visual time capsule of a community over the course of decades. Where once there was small town community, today there is merely isolation.