TRÄUME DER LAUSITZ

Sallmann places the third part of his Lusatia trilogy in the tradition of the DEFA director Peter Rocha, who in 1989/90 in THE PAIN OF LUSATIA (FFC 2017) described the extent of the destruction caused by open-cast mining in a shocking way. But now we see people who see a harbour basin with a chain of lakes in a lunar landscape, who dream of new forests, experiment with boulders, build floating houses, resettle Holland here or circumnavigate the remaining holes of the open-cast mines on all conceivable sports equipment. While the masses lack one thing: work. Thus, the wolf conquers the land from which people disappear or are left behind in shrinking cities. Although – or perhaps precisely because of this – the film makes clear the ambivalence of the development and deals with the loss as well as the atmosphere of departure, it was controversially received  in Lusatia at this time. In any case, it is one of the most important cinematic explorations on the search for identity in a region that is still searching.  GL