Trailer
Year
2011
Length
45 min
Director
Christian Beetz
Jürgen Böttcher - My Life
In GDR and also in FRG Jürgen Böttcher was the star among the documentarians in the 1970s and 80s. His films invented styles, were guidance and the secret ideal for an entire generation of German filmmakers.
Jürgen Böttcher alias Stradewalde is one of the greatest documentarians and painters of the ex-GDR. He tended to be experimental and was a strong influence on artists of the following generation. Jürgen Böttcher appearance doesn’t reveal his age, but he celebrated his 90th birthday at July 8th 2021. He is someone who seems to stay young forever.
He is a man who has lived in three German state systems and his anger rises when he speaks about the shallows of German history. He was influenced by the terrible experiences of fascism, disappointed by the system of GDR, a system he would have loved to believe in. But instead his art was banned and his friends were expatriated. The state collapsed and he was thrown into a new period he never really found himself in. Jürgen Böttcher is woven into German history in his very own unadjusted way.
The double Adolf-Grimme-laureate Christian Beetz accompanied Jürgen Böttcher back to the village of his childhood: Stradewalde in Oberlausitz/Saxonia and spoke with him about his childhood and youth.
Directed by
Christian Beetz
Cinematography
Lars Barthel
Thomas Plenert
Sound
Nic Nagel
Agnetha Lang
Editing
Lars Späth
Music
Nils Kacirek
Line Producer
Kathrin Isberner
Philipp Weigold
Commissioning Editor
Ann-Christin Hornberger
Sales & distribution
- Press kit
- Press photos
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„Just in diesem Moment überraschen uns die aus dem Theaterbereich stammenden jungen Regisseure Hans Block und Moritz Riesewieck mit einem erstaunlichen Dokumentarfilm, der seit Monaten Publikum und Kritik auf den wichtigsten Festivals der Welt elektrisiert. Völlig zu Recht: Es ist, als würden einem die Scheuklappen weggerissen, als sähe man das, was sich seit Jahren direkt vor unseren Augen abspielt, zum ersten Mal unverschleiert... eine fesselnde ,Doku noir' mit höchstem Anspruch...Dieser Film müsste an allen Schulen gezeigt werden.“
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
17.05.2018
