GERMAN DOX
 Saturday 28 November 15:30 and Tuesday 1 December 11:00 

Deutsche Seelen – Leben nach der Colonia Dignidad
GERMAN SOULS LIFE AFTER THE COLONIA DIGNIDAD

Ruediger was a child, Aki was 2 months old and Kurt was deputy to the sect leader Paul Schaefer. Back in 1961, together with 500 other German sect members, they all came to Chile and for over 40 years they lived cut off from the rest of the world. The colony was secretive, surrounded by barbed wire fences, searchlights, a watchtower, and contained secret weapon caches. Drugs were administered as a form of sedation, child molestation was a regular occurrence, and severe punishment in the form of beatings and torture was commonplace: Schaefer insisted that discipline was spiritually enriching. During the military dictatorship in Chile, the colony became an operational base of the Pinochet secret service: Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia.
Following decades of murder and torture, perpetrators and victims continue living next door to one another, bound together by a code of silence. Parallels to recent German history abound. The personal stories told are harrowing tales of longing and romantic notions, about displacement and abject despair, about blame, taking responsibility and being a victim.

Martin Farkas worked on several documentaries in Asia, South America, Africa and Europe after graduating from secondary school. He went on to study social sciences, focusing on sociology and psychology. He directed award-winning video art and commercials. Since 1994 he has done the camera work for feature documentaries and films which are shown around the world at film festivals and have won international prizes. As a cameraman, he has worked on many television movies and miniseries, such as Tatort. Matthias Zuber graduated from the German School of Journalism in 1998. He founded polyeides medienkontor in 1999. Since then he has been working as a freelance writer for Stern, Die Zeit, and Sueddeutsche Zeitung, amongst others. In the area of broadcasting he has created several long features for stations such as DeutschlandRadio, SWR II and WDR III. He has worked freelance as a writer, director, camera operator, cutter and television producer, not only with magazine format but also for longer films (30’ - 120’), broadcasting stations including BR, DW TV, MDR, SFB/RBB, ARD, ZDF, 3sat and Arte. In 2000 he co-wrote the movie-documentary A Woman And A Half (Mehr als eine Frau) about Hildegard Knef that received a nomination for the Deutscher Filmpreis in 2002. He teaches at the German School of Journalism and is currently working in Albania on the documentary Der Bergfuerst by Philip Vogt, for the BR. He is also working on two further half-hour projects (for MDR and RBB) as well as several documentaries and a feature.