T-Port Blog

Betina Kuntzsch, an artist and filmmaker, has spent over three decades pushing the boundaries of animated documentary film, blending personal history, archival footage, and striking visuals.

Her latest work, SKY LIKE SILK, FULL OF ORANGES, which appears on T-Port Courtesy of our partners at AG Kurzfilm, delves into the reality of a place that had only before been seen in postcards, through the eyes of the first group of travellers from the GDR after the wall came down. 

With screenings at renowned festivals like DOK Leipzig and Interfilm Berlin, and a distinctive use of animation, collage, and music, Kuntzsch’s film offers a poignant, yet playful commentary on a generation caught between two worlds. 

Hi Betina, would you mind introducing yourself in a few lines:

I am an artist and filmmaker. In my short films I explore the possibilities of animated documentary film. How can I deal with documents, photos, film sequences, facts and original sounds? what can I condense into a short film? Drawing and animation are always important. I have established video drawing as my working thesis. In other words, working with graphic structures and textures in the medium of video.

I was born and grew up in East Germany. In 1988, I graduated as a book designer from the Academy of Visual Arts (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig) with a video work. That was the first ever diploma with a videotape there. That was a time of analogue photographic technology that you can’t even imagine today. We didn’t even have a photocopier at the university. We made the copies with a plate camera, glued negative film onto the glass plates and then exposed them. Television was still made with analogue magnetic tapes. 

For my diploma ICH SASS AUF EINEM STEINE I made drawings on an Amiga computer (there were a few of these in private ownership in the GDR) and recorded single-frame animations with 1-inch magnetic tape, copied audio tapes and snipped them with scissors and so on… I could go on and on about this dinosaur age of technology…

After graduating, I worked in GDR television, then the Wall came down. That was a thrilling time, I was just the right age, had completed my studies and had my first professional experience. I founded a video production company with friends and was responsible for motion graphics. We did post pro and TV design for TV stations and film productions. I did VFX for films by Peter Greenaway and Alexander Sokurov, among others. I have also worked on my own short films and art projects. 

You have been creating short films and projects for 30 years, what made you choose this time in history to explore the unkept promises of neoliberalism and German reunification?

That’s an interesting question, is that how you see it? I’m just describing a journey and people who come from a grey country to the colourful land of their dreams and suddenly see that there is only reality there too, that you have to pay for everything and that the fulfilment of some dreams is more expensive than of other dreams… and anyway. It’s a film about people who arrive in reality in the land of their dreams.

I came across the subject of the film by chance. I was on Mallorca for the first time in 2023, doing research for another film. One evening in the hotel, I simply typed ‘Mallorca and GDR’ into the search mask – and was completely surprised to see the photos of GDR citizens on the gangway of an Interflug plane being received in Mallorca like state guests – exactly the pictures with the shopping bags and the dance group and ‘welcome’ banners that I recreated in the film.

What were the biggest challenges you encountered during the production process?

I wanted to find someone who was on this trip and could give me an interview. I searched a lot in old newspaper reports. A newspaper article from 1990 actually mentioned Horst Teichmann, who I then found and contacted.

He didn’t want to give an interview himself, but we spoke on the phone several times and he sent me his travel documents, which he had kept: the travel catalogue, visa applications, hotel vouchers, even the boarding passes and two photos. I then continued to search for holiday photos and postcards from Mallorca and also found various slide boxes. The slide positives have a very unique look, apart from the motifs.

When I had finished the film, other people got in touch who had even been on the first Interflug plane. If I had spoken to these men, who were very young at the time, it might have been a completely different film. Or maybe not, because of course I also incorporated a lot of what I had experienced myself or learnt in conversations with friends and family.

Another challenge was finding a voice actress. I often speak in my films myself. I asked an actress friend of mine, Valeska Hegewald, who also comes from the GDR and flew to Mallorca in the 90s. She has a slight Saxon accent and can remember this feeling of freedom and new beginnings very clearly.

Tell us about the visual choices in your film – the use of archive footage, collage, and textures, coupled with soundtrack and voice over – why did you choose this particular technique of visual storytelling for this particular film? 

Originally, I wanted to tell the film entirely with postcards and collages of postcard pieces. But then I found the documents, the catalogues. The pictures tell the story of the 90s and bring authenticity to the film.

The postcards symbolise the longings. We in the GDR were not allowed to travel to Western countries and more or less only knew the world from the postcards of our Western relatives. And in the 90s we still sent postcards…

Then I found Mallorca slides on ebay. Holiday slides that not only show the perfect, perhaps retouched postcard views, but also everyday life on holiday. People from behind, the lantern behind the palm tree – just reality.

In my films, I try out what animated documentary film can be, what means can be used to tell a story, how real documents can be incorporated and thoughts or feelings can be visualised. I always work on the text and the images at the same time, layering the levels in relation to each other, seeing what needs how much time, what works and what doesn’t. And I try to keep the text (there are few comments from me, more quotes from contemporary witnesses) as concise as possible.

There’s a playfulness in this film that seems to echo the joy and freedom of travellers coming to Mallorca from the DDR for the first time – and also judgment coming from outsiders toward the collective group – what made you decide to blend these themes within the film? 

It’s not my first film about growing up in the GDR. I’m interested in the subject because I want to add everyday experiences to the reality that is written in the history books. These experiences are often very different from the ‘great’ historical truth, but they make everyday life during this time tangible. They show nuances – and they are often bizarre.

Music plays a large part in the experience of the film – could you tell me more about how the score came to be? 

I worked together with Eike Hosenfeld and Moritz Denis on the soundtrack. We watched TV reports about these Mallorca trips in 1990 and the two of them composed and recorded the score.

What was it like to sit down and make this film – what did the process look like to select and arrange the fragments of images that you used? How long did it take? And how did the process feel? 

The film was made relatively quickly, in just under a year. I wanted to finish it for the 30th anniversary of the Interflug trip to Mallorca. I tried to get funding, but nothing worked out at such short notice. In my films, I do almost everything myself. I tapped into my savings to pay the voice actress, the musicians, the sound studio and other ‘hard’ costs. 

The ideas came to me while I was working, including the documents… It was great fun and progressed well. Sometimes there are projects that just have to be done. You just have to find the time and the energy to realise them.

Your films have received festival exposure and accolades, what advice would you give to upcoming filmmakers whose films are just beginning to submit their films to festivals? How would you recommend they approach the process, and what would you recommend they do in order to get the most out of a festival? 

Festival submissions are an important topic. After all, short films are – unfortunately – often only shown and seen at festivals. That’s where they start their real life. That’s why you should definitely invest time and energy in sending them out into the world…

Once a film is finished, you’re knocked out and the next projects beckon. But it’s important to take care of the festival distribution and make a plan for it. I’m not perfect at it and try to do it as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. Hiring an agency to do it is out of the question for me. I’m not interested in spending a lot of money to have the film shown at hundreds of festivals worldwide. 

I have a list of festivals that I know and love, where I like to go or would like to go one day. Where I see films and meet people who inspire me. Where people might know and like my films in the meantime. Where there are events for filmmakers and workshops. And where the submission fees are not so expensive. Being on location with my film and taking part in Q&As, discussing with the audience is important to me – although travelling also costs money, of course.

In any case, I think it’s important to research each festival, who organises it and why, what films are shown there, how the films and filmmakers are treated and appreciated. In Germany there are organisations and websites that support filmmakers and list film festivals on their websites and publish experience reports (ag-kurzfilm.de, shortfilm.de). It is also very helpful to exchange ideas with other filmmakers.

 

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