Blue Eyes (1996)

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Movie
German title Blue-eyed
Original title Blue Eyed
Blue Eyed Cover.jpg
Country of production Germany
original language English
Publishing year 1996
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK INFO program according to §14 JuSchG
Rod
Director Bertram Verhaag
script Bertram Verhaag
production Claus Strigel ,
Bertram Verhaag
music Frank Loef ,
Wolfgang Neumann
camera Waldemar Hauschild
cut Uwe Klimmeck
occupation

Blue-eyed (Original title: Blue Eyed ) is a documentary of BERTRAM VERHAAG about the workshops of the American teacher and anti-racism activist Jane Elliott . The film reports on how she conveys the life experiences of discriminated minorities such as people of color , the disabled , homosexuals , migrants and other disadvantaged groups in society to the participants, with their participation, in these workshops .

content

The documentary about Jane Elliott and her workshop concept was produced by Munich filmmaker Bertram Verhaag in 1995 in the USA and shows the course of such a workshop with an adult group as well as the social psychological experiment with a school class from 1970 with an interview with a participant later as adults, plus parts of presentations and interviews with Jane Elliott.

In these workshops she simulates the emotions and experiences of the disadvantaged, which they experience in real life. It divides the participants into two groups, a group of the privileged and a discriminated group, to which it then assigns or denies the corresponding attributes and rights. The privileged are intelligent, decent, tidy, clean, so better. They can be recognized by their brown eyes. The disadvantaged, the blue-eyed, are usually less intelligent, they are dirty, repulsive, bad. In her workshops she treats the participants in her workshops in a correspondingly preferential, encouraging and approving or demeaning, harassing and disparaging manner, so that these artificially generated stereotypes are transferred to the participants through her authority and group-dynamic processes . In the further course of the workshops, the participants of the discriminated group in particular experience the hopelessness of breaking out of this arbitrarily constructed value system . Rather, their role behavior manifests itself , up to the complete resignation of the underprivileged.

The film includes quotes from Jane Elliott's first documentary, Eye of the Storm, made in 1970.

background

The purpose of the workshops, which have been recreated by many psychological and educational experts, is to raise awareness of the consequences of stigmatization and, according to Jane Elliott, to sensitize people to these structures in society. She wants to convey this to the individual in her workshops , as it were, but also through her commitment to make it clear to a wider public that it is not enough to do nothing to combat racism and prejudice . Indifference, passivity, a lack of commitment and often a lack of moral courage are, unwanted but also wanted, the stabilizers of this structural discrimination.

"For racism to work, it is enough for the good people to do nothing."

- Jane Elliott

The workshops were carried out in numerous seminars with students, with professionals, with firefighters, with bank employees and in schools in the USA and in other countries. They were sometimes controversial. An association was founded in Germany to promote the training concept and is now selling it commercially.

Awards

The film received the 1997 Palm Springs International Film Festival Award for Documentary Films, as well as the Civis Television Award and the Civis Youth Jury Award. At the 1996 Academy Awards , Blue Eyed received an Honorable Mention. He was awarded the Findlings Prize at the Leipzig International Documentary Film Festival. Other prizes: Audience Award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival 1996, Bronze Plaque Award at the Columbus International Film & Video Festival 1996, IDA Award from the International Documentary Association 1996, One Future Prize (Honorable Mention) at the Munich Film Festival 1996, Documentary Award at Central Florida Film & Video Festival 1997, Creative Excellence Award at the US International Film and Video Festival 1997.

literature

  • Herbert Heinzelmann: Blue Eyed - Bertram Verhaag. Federal Republic of Germany 1996 ; Film booklet of the Institute for Cinema and Film Culture on behalf of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, April 2002
  • Reinhard Barrabas: Core areas of psychology. An introduction to film examples. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-3850-6 , pp. 70-75.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The media interest . eyetoeye.org. Retrieved March 13, 2016.
  2. ↑ References to other pages on this and other training concepts . eyetoeye.org. Retrieved March 13, 2016.
  3. ↑ Awards . denkmalfilm.tv. Retrieved March 13, 2016.
  4. ↑ List of film awards for Blauäugig ( Blue Eyed ) , according to imdb.com (nominations and awards), accessed on April 22, 2013
  5. ^ The film booklet Blue Eyed - Bertram Verhaag. Federal Republic of Germany 1996 ( Memento from September 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 1.34 MB)

Web links