Short Documentary "Ostblock"

SHORT DOCUMENTARY OSTBLOCK https://www.clarafranke.com/ostblock/

What: The 9:50min documentary film “Ostblock” focusses on an interview with my grandmother Gisela Heidorn and shows examples of dia photos my Oma took on her travels to the then called “Ostblock”, which had been the inspiration for this project.

The film starts with around 20 seconds of myself putting up a dia projector. Following a combination is shown of dia photos and my grandmother looking through her photo albums and talking to me about her journeys. The audio consists of snippets of our conversation in German and as such is translated into English in subtitles.

In the interview she describes the bureaucratic hurdles she and my grandfather had to overcome in order to travel around in Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe. She also mentioned the beauty of the places they got to see in contrast to topics like surveillance, limitation of free speech and financial struggles that affected the people on the other side of the wall, compared to them.

The film has large black side frames that give the film a dia like feeling.

How: The process started during a semester of my Bachelor. I was supposed to work on a project including the concept of light. I had found many boxes of dia travel photos in my grandmother's basement and her collection of sands from all over the world, which she keeps in glass jars on a shelf in her living room.

I slowly started to experiment with the photos in a photo studio; projecting them onto the walls with her old projector and mirroring fragments of them in kaleidoscopes and mirror pieces. I spend several days like this, just looking at the images and reflecting on the stories they were telling me in order to find the right medium.

Finally the photos that spoke to me most and made me remember conversations I had with her in the past were those of her and my grandfather's travels to “The East”, when Germany was still divided. So I focussed on these, made a selection that I scanned and filmed and interviewed her about these specific travels.

Next to this my semester project also consisted of a table that I made inspired from my grandmother's travel tales. The table is made from epoxy and includes the sand she had collected, jarred and labeled.

Why: First of all I had been amazed by my grandmother's skills for organization and cataloging. I had thought for a while that I should work on a project with her as I always find it beautiful to see people work on project with their grandparents, in order to visualize and carry on their stories and experiences.

One of the activities I enjoy most when I visit my grandmother is to open her photo books and have her tell me the tales of the depicted journeys. Especially when talking about places that by now have changed borders and that had much greater limitations to move freely when she visited them intrigues me. These tales remind me of my own privileges to travel almost everywhere I wish to without much questioning.

The fact that Germany was still divided until 1989 and what that meant to the people is very difficult to imagine now, even though the ripple effects of the division can still be seen in today's German social structures.

That is why I think this interview serves the purpose to remind and educate on our German/ general European History and where we have gotten in order to avoid stepping back into the exclusion and division and continuously work towards inclusion and open borders.