Am Fluss: Kienitz im Oderbruch, 1978

For his third landscape film, Volker Koepp went to the Oderbruch, more precisely to the area around Kienitz. Here he met Fritz, the farmer, and Albert, the roofer and ferryman, who has lived in Kienitz since 1927. It is a peaceful scene when we watch Fritz sharpening his scythe or Albert fishing for "capital pike", but the film also tells the long story of German guilt in the European East. In January 1945, soldiers of the Red Army had established the first bridgehead across the Oder in Kienitz, and by April 1945 alone, more than 30,000 Soviet soldiers were to die here. Thus the film is not only an encounter with a landscape, but also the narration of painful memories and lived history.