Mikko Linnemann

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Mikko Linnemann (born 1973 ) is a filmmaker and film scholar .

life and work

Little information is available about Mikko Linnemann's vita. According to DNB, he studied film studies , sociology and psychology . His master's thesis at the University of Mainz , a treatise on the cinematic dialectics in Robert Lepage's films , was published as a book by Nomos Verlag in 2010 .

IMDb names the short film Trautes Heim from 2004 as the first work , with the actors Leila Beil, Frank Ferner, Sabine Kämper and Gerold Wurstel. In 2006, the 7-minute film Un coeur gelé en été with Christina Hecke as a doctor and a number of unknown actors followed. The director appeared as a priest in this film.

How to remember

Linnemann founded the film company GEGENFEUER produktionen , which is based in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg . The trilogy “How to remember?” Was created between 2011 and 2016, dealing with the industrial mass murder of the National Socialists and German politics of remembrance. Linnemann: "Here contradictions, continuities, but also consequences from German history can be sensually experienced."

1. No peace to the wicked (2011)

The title of this 40-minute film comes from the former prisoner Leon Szalet (1892–1958). He was one of more than five hundred Jews of Polish nationality who were deported from Berlin to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1939 . He was one of the very few who was released, in his case as a result of his daughter's tough efforts. Immediately after their release, father and daughter emigrated to the United States via Shanghai , where he wrote down torture, torture and injustice in the concentration camp in his memoirs.

"Somewhere in me there was still the indestructible belief that when the accounts were settled, if the wicked would crawl to the cross and beg for mercy, these observations could be thrown into the balance."

His hope remained unfulfilled. The report appeared in a shortened English version in 1946, and in German only 61 years after the fall of the Nazi regime. Linnemann's essay film contrasts Szalet's literary survival report with today's images and sounds of the places described. “The documentation is characterized by opposites. Fast street scenes alternate with images of the small town idyll, of fenced row houses with rose borders and letter boxes with a pointed roof. The SS camp personnel used to live here. A train rushes through the Oranienburg station and the picture still stands when the blades of grass pushed down by the draft have long since straightened up again. ”The speaker is Michael Mendl , the music is by Heinz Röttger , Sascha Neudeck, Katharina Katter and Michal Jacaszek.

2. The earth of Treblinka (2013)

The 23-minute film in black and white is based on the descriptions of the Hell of Treblinka in the book by Wassili Grossman (1905–1964) and an optical exploration of the ground and the granite blocks that are arranged around the central memorial. The names of the places of origin of the people who were murdered by Germans in Treblinka are engraved there: "Unknown Polish names, little Jewish shtetls, hardly present in the memory of the Holocaust."

3. Triumph of Goodwill (2016)

The 95-minute film illuminates the work of the publicist Eike Geisel (1945–1997) and his criticism of the German politics of memory. The filmmaker asks experts on the subject, Klaus Bittermann , Henryk M. Broder , Alex Feuerherdt and Hermann L. Gremliza , examines the “possibility of criticism in impossible times”, leaves the early 1990s as a phase of “reparation for the Germans”, such as she was cynically called hostage, pass in review. The images of the memorials erected in Berlin - Neue Wache , Holocaust memorial - stand in stark contrast to the words Geisels read, who harshly criticized their creation.

According to the filmmaker, the film reflects Geisel's thesis, "The Shoah ultimately paid off in terms of export quotas and culture." While the first two films in the series were very close to the mass murder of European Jews, the third part represents The so-called coming to terms with the past is up for debate, starting with the collective denial of crimes during the first post-war years, through the historians' dispute and the totalitarian theory, to the so-called final line debate .

More productions

In 2013 - in the Little Germany series - the short film Gott in'n Meenzer was presented, which documents the “Nazi spectacle of carnival”. The second episode in the series, Hermann & Germania , is currently being shot , a cinematic exploration of the ritualized commemoration of war and soldier death. A third series has also been announced, “Places”, the first film of which is dedicated to the Beerfeld gallows . Linnemann's films are mostly presented in front of a student audience, often in the presence of the filmmaker and followed by a discussion. Groups against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism also invite the director and film.

Filmography

Unless otherwise stated, Linnemann is responsible for the script, production and direction.

  • 2001: La fin du temps
  • 2002: Nec Curo
  • 2004: Sweet home
  • 2005: Un coeur gelé en été, 7 min
  • 2006: End / Time
  • 2007: Madamned, only camera and editing, screenplay and director: Katrin Reinfrank
  • 2011: No peace to the wicked (about Leon Szalet ), 40 min
  • 2013: The Earth of Treblinka (with texts by Wassili Grossman ), 23 min
  • 2013: Gott is'n Meenzer, 11 min
  • 2016: Triumph of good will (about Eike Geisel ), 95 min
  • 2019: In the forecourt of history - Celebrating Marx, 94 min.

Book publication

  • Possible Worlds. Cinematic dialectics in Robert Lepage's feature films. Series of publications "Film Studies", Vol. 60, Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3-8329-5356-0

Press reviews on the trilogy "How to remember?"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Counterfire: To the series How to remember? , accessed October 30, 2016.
  2. ↑ Film and documentary archive against anti-Semitism and post-Nazi projections: (How do you remember?) Kein Friede den Frevlern , January 18, 2016, accessed on October 30, 2016.
  3. ↑ Counterfire: No Peace to the Wicked , accessed on October 30, 2015.
  4. ↑ Sonja Vogel: Where are there words? , in: Tageszeitung (Berlin), November 5, 2012, accessed on October 30, 2016.
  5. ↑ Film and documentary archive against anti-Semitism and post-Nazi projections: (How do you remember?) Die Erde von Treblinka , March 14, 2016, accessed on October 30, 2016.
  6. ↑ We live in cemented times A conversation with Mikko Linnemann about German politics of remembrance and »coming to terms with the past«, Neues Deutschland (Berlin), 23 January 2016
  7. ↑ ÖH Vienna : “Triumph of good will” film screening and discussion with the director , date on June 16, 2016, accessed on October 30, 2016.
  8. ^ Socio-critical odyssey (Geko): Announcement text for the event in Halle , accessed on October 30, 2016.
  9. ^ Alliance against Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism (Leipzig): The reparation of the Germans, reading and film screening , accessed on October 30, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Linnemann, Mikko
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Film director, screenwriter and film producer
DATE OF BIRTH 1973