The Black Box

Der Schwarze Kasten

The Black Box

Tamara Trampe, Johann Feindt

DE
1992
Documentary
94’
Focus

»What lay behind the headlong rush into a ›New Society‹ that forbade any questions whatsoever?«
Tamara Trampe

Cramped interior spaces. The camera comes right up close to a man’s face. Slowly it scans his exterior: Jochen Girke. He was born in 1949 and grew up in the GDR. Tamara Trampe immigrated from the Soviet Union in 1950 as a child. One of them enlists in the civil service, the other is declared an enemy of the state. Why? In 1990, Tamara Trampe, in collaboration with Johann Feindt, began to sketch the cinematic psychogramme of a desk murderer, which also sought to get to the bottom of the pathologies of German social history.
How did you become who you are today? Girke worked for many years as a psychologist for the GDR’s secret service. The retrospective begins in early childhood and extends to the present. After the dissolution of the state, he fled to the fore: he talks publicly about his Stasi past and plunges into his next job as a campaign consultant for the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). We listen to those around him: the high- school teacher, his mother, his wife, professors at the psychological institute. Trampe encounters shame and consternation, but also a surprising amount of indifference and helplessness. Only the writer Jürgen Fuchs, who himself was exposed to the violence of the Stasi, voices clear criticism.

In cooperation with KHM

Director / Script

Tamara Trampe, Johann Feindt

Cinematography

Johann Feindt

Editing

Sybille Windt

Sound

Paul Oberle

Production

Wolfgang Pfeiffer, Max Film

Coproduction

WDR

Contact

Tamara Trampe

Portrait of director Tamara Trampe

Tamara Trampe

Tamara Trampe worked as a dramaturge for numerous feature films at the DEFA Studio for Feature Films Babelsberg from 1970 to 1990. Since 1990, Trampe has worked as a freelance film-maker, author and dramaturge, and has taught at various film academies.


Films by Tamara Trampe & Johann Feindt
Meine Mutter, ein Krieg und ich mit 2014 | Wiegenlieder 2009 | Weiße Raben – Alptraum Tschetschenien 2005 | Im Glanze dieses Glückes 1990 | Ich war einmal ein Kind 1986

Johann Feindt

Johann Feindt studied at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). He is a cinematographer, author and director for documentary and feature films, and also for television productions. He has won national and international awards for his films.


Films by Johann Feindt & Tamara Trampe
Meine Mutter, ein Krieg und ich mit 2014 | Wiegenlieder 2009 | Weiße Raben – Alptraum Tschetschenien 2005 | Im Glanze dieses Glückes 1990 | Ich war einmal ein Kind 1986