SECTIONS // OFFICIAL COMPETITION SHORT LENGTH

Schicht (Shift)

Alex Gerbaulet
29' / 2015 / Germany
Web: http://schicht.pong-berlin.de
German
English and spanish subtitled

Audience vote 3.76

SHIFT unfolds the portrait of the filmmaker's family - brought to life by records from private archives - and embarks on a dizzying trip through the shrinking industrial city of Salzgitter, Germany. A city that is a cyborg with an iron skeleton and a heart beating 1000 metres deep under layers of soil and concrete.
Mining, steel factory, model city. Upon the years 33 and 45, the first post-war generation projects itself into the future. Rudolf Gerbaulet completes his apprenticeship at the Reichswerke AG (formerly known as Hermann-Göring-Werk), works in the mine and at the Volkswagen plant. His wife Doris suffers from multiple sclerosis. Her diary is an expression of her slow disappearance. They name their first daughter after a singer: Alexandra. As a rebellious punk the daughter finds her own rhythm.
Pulsating, sometimes breathless, the film follows the exposed stories. The filmed locations are attacked with archival material: propaganda, news, photos from family albums. Everything is subjected to the filmmaker's interpretation.
A film between analysis and imagination, composed of the punk of the filmmaker's youth, accompanied by the roar of the steel mill and the noise of the highway. Interrupted by the cutting silence of abandoned mines, in which from 2020 nuclear waste will be dumped.

Main Festivals & Awards

International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2015 - 1st Prize of the German Competition / FID Marseille 2015- First Film Award / German Film Critics Award 2015
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2015 / FID Marseille 2015 / DocLisboa 2015 / Filmmaker Festival Milano 2015 / transmediale Berlin 2016 / BIEFF - Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival 2016 / EMAF - European Media Art Festival Osnabrück 2016

Director's Biography

Alex Gerbaulet, 1977, artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. Till 2007 she studied Philosophy, Media Science and Fine Arts. Since 2008 she was awarded several scholarships and grants. 2007-2011 she was staff member at the University of Arts in Braunschweig, 2012-2014 she teached at the University of Arts in Kassel. Since 2014 she is part of pong film Berlin. She realized several video-art projects. SCHICHT is her first cinema film.