A genre documentary about 1990s Germany, in which people seem to take on the roles of themselves. Be it during a class on how to behave during childbirth or at a military training station, everywhere we can see people’s incessant efforts to be prepared for a “real” emergency. The film centers on the idea that nothing in the country is carried out with the utmost preparation. A portrait of a society in which giving birth, dying, crying, killing and caring for the needy are acts taught and learnt in state or private institutions. Best documentary 1990 (German Critic' Association).
Harun Farocki
Born in Nový Jičín, Czech Republic. He studied at the German Academy for Film and Television, in Berlin. He works mainly as a documentarist and is a three-time winner of the German Critics’ Association Award – for best short with The Inextinguishable Fire (1969) and best documentary for Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges (1989) and How to Live in the German Federal Republic (1990). For War at a Distance (2003), he received a special mention at the Toronto Film Festival.
