Lights from Afar

ÖZET

Merely a few years after the fall of the Wall, Berlin is in a state of upheaval. Mammoth construction sites, particularly in the new government district between Bellevue and Tiergarten, reveal the city's efforts to take on the architectural appearance of a modern new capital - a task that risks scarring the face of the old metropolis, forever wiping out the material presence of its history, marring the memory of it in the minds of its inhabitants. Helga Reidemeister documents these changes with a poetic eye for the complicated beauty of today's Berlin, while avoiding sentimental or conventional language. Music by world-renowned jazz trombonist Konrad Bauer contributes much to the haunting beauty of this work.