»I always want to know as much as possible, and in great detail, about what the other person has done, how he lives, how he thinks, what he‘s just been doing, what he achieves and what he has suffered, what are his hopes and desires.«
– Gitta Nickel

In Manchmal möchte man fliegen, Gitta Nickel accompanies a work brigade on a building site in Berlin-Marzahn for a year, as they erect a tower block. The film describes the attitudes of the young workers in the GDR and their everyday difficulties. Sometimes there are only outer walls and no ceiling panels, sometimes nothing at all is delivered to the building site. The men themselves are blamed by management and party leaders for not meeting targets. Reactions to the film were mixed: although it was awarded a Silberne Taube (Silver Dove) at the Internationalen Dokumentarfilmfestival in Leipzig, the official opinion was that it portrayed the »wrong« brigade. Through its mouthpiece Junge Welt, the FDJ tainted Nickel in a media campaign.The irritated words of Politbüro official Kurt Hager have been preserved: »This time we‘ll let her off, the next time she‘ll be sacked!« Although the film was not banned in the GDR, it was only shown in film clubs. 19 years later, Nickel returned to Marzahn for the ORB where she filmed Die da in der Platte with some of the same protagonists.

Awards for ›Manchmal möchte man fliegen‹
Silberne Taube, Internationales Dokumentarfilmfesival, Leipzig 1981

Film Programme Urban Landscapes