28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
Stepping Out
director: Eva Heldmann
original title: Fremd gehen. Gespräche mit meiner Freundin
country: Germany
year: 2000
running time: 64 min.
synopsis
The lives of Germans and Americans, civilians and soldiers, and the worlds of strict military order and irrational passions collide and clash from World War II up until the withdrawal of troops in the 1990s. Academician Annette Brauerhoch crossed paths with both sides independently and on her own accord. Her own footage shot on an 8mm camera shows her engaging in intimate relations with African-American soldiers in the nightclubs scattered around the local US military base. The protagonist’s relentless search for distractions was simultaneously shot on 16mm film by director Eva C. Heldmann. This combination of two narrative perspectives gives a layered portrait of a woman's desire, who asserts herself in a strongly macho environment.“To my mind, war movies create a fantasy in which sexualised power is violently acted out but in which the violence of sexuality can also be enjoyed.”
biography
Eva C. Heldmann (* 1951) is a German experimental and documentary director, film journalist, co-founder of the Mondpalast repertoire cinema in Niederbrechen, and noted feminist. Her films, in which she frequently revisits themes of female sexuality, have been shown in Oberhausen and at the Berlin and Vienna film festivals.more about film
| director: | Eva Heldmann |
