Freeing the world... but with which films? These were the kinds of questions that film students Anna Pein and Claudia Reiche explored in their documentary film studies in the 1980s. When the two decided on the subject of »circus,« namely a small family circus, which they filmed over several seasons and during winter storage, they had no idea what kind of »Allez hopp!!« would carry them away from their train of thought. The preserved video edit from 1988 conveys an encounter with a traveling culture. With people who proudly offer themselves in their circus performances as a mirror of their audience's desires. The result is a film about harsh living conditions, fixed traditions and closed meanings, solidarity and friendship—in short, an astonished, open look at the unknown behind the circus show, which can become a look into one's own life.
With additional shorts + discussion with Claudia Reiche
Guest at Millerntorwache: Claudia Reiche: O | CIRCUS
Millerntorwache is a branch of the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte (Museum of Hamburg History) run by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S.
Claudia Reiche
is an artist, media scholar, and curator. She deals with questions of mediality, psychoanalysis, film, and visual cultures, as well as the epistemological, aesthetic, and political implications of digital technologies. She has been teaching in the theoretical and artistic fields and publishing for many years. She also works on web projects, film and photography, exhibitions, and is active in feminist and queer projects.
Anna Pein (1957-2024)
studied visual communication at the HfbK Hamburg. Author and director of the film “Meermanns Baumhaus” (Meermann's Tree House).
Video documentaries, screenplays, film essays. “Mädchenzimmer mit Soldaten” (Girls' Room with Soldiers) was her first play, which was also produced as a radio play by WDR in 2006. Other radio plays included: Potentielle Freunde (WDR 2007), together with Stefanie Schütz, Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas / Arno Schmidt (HR/RBB 2010), Liebesbriefe ans Personal (WDR 2013), Die Mondscheinbraut (NDR/HR 2016), Die Umsiedler / Arno Schmidt, Anna Pein (NDR/WDR 2017), Schwarze Spiegel contd. / Arno Schmidt, Anna Pein (NDR 2021). In 2018, she received the Robert Geisendörfer Prize together with Oliver Sturm for Die Umsiedler.
