„Divine Location“ is a cheerful-melancholic documentary that does almost completely without a narrator. The film finds a good relationship with its characters, listens and accompanies them throughout the years. By doing so, anecdotes and details are captured which, in the microcosm of Phoenix Lake, represent changes that have affected the entire Ruhr area and many other regions in Germany: Deindustrialisation, the gentrification of former working-class districts, etc. Hörde is the location of an archetypal class conflict… The result is not exactly funny, but sometimes you laugh to keep from crying“
www.filmkritik.de // Sascha Westphal

„The film gets very close to the people involved, the people who merely live there, to the point where you feel like they have forgotten the camera over the years. But Loeken and Franke have looked closely, they listen, they let Dortmund talk. What they depict is more than the accelerated construction of a city lake: they demonstrate to us the meaning of „deindustrialisation“ and „gentrification“ and make us aware of what both do to people.”
Annika Fischer // WAZ // 17.08.2014

„DIVINE LOCATION tells its story in a completely unruffled way and with a soothing calm, without judging and without painting anything in black and white. You constantly sense a critique of the planning system, but it is never blatantly expressed.“
Jurybegründung FBW-Prädikat „besonders wertvoll“

„The buzzword gentrification has rarely been made as tangible as it is in these chronological snapshots of migrant locals and workers on the one hand and marketers and moneyed newcomers on the other. This film, which does without a narrator, never takes sides. Instead, with intelligent editing, it intensifies the divide between the rose-tinted world view of the newcomers and the real world.“
Birgit Roschy // Publik Forum // 29.08.2014

„In „Divine Location“, documentary filmmakers Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken use sensitive imagery and perceptive interviews to trace just how much conflict potential has been left behind  – despite all of the excitement surrounding the new Phoenix Lake  –  in the wake of this urban upheaval . (…) Director Ulrike Franke allows all sides to have their say in front of the camera, and assembles what she sees and hears like a portrait of manners and morals: despair, doubt, bitterness, but also a spirit of optimism and pride resonate in the very personal statements. It’s as if the interviewees have completely forgotten that Michael Loeken’s camera were even there.“
Deutsche Welle // 21.08.2014

„The film succeeds in making socially relevant and complex processes understandable in an entertaining way. Issues like radical structural change – which not only the Ruhr area is experiencing – gentrification and the role of public space for the public good are made physically palpable for the viewer through precise observations. Always with a knowing smile, the film delivers surprising insights into the incredibly diverse social groups that are involved in this process. At the same time, the critical attitude of the two filmmakers, Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken, is always unmistakable. Long-drawn-out changes and disparate attitudes collected during almost five years from the scene of the action – the setting of Lake Phoenix – are assembled here into a fascinating, charming and multi-layered cinematic narrative that bears a precise signature.“
Jurybegründung Nonfiktionale 2015 // Hauptpreis

„Göttliche Lage ist ein großartiges Lehrstück, mit „Divine Location is a fantastic educational piece, with a wonderful understanding of social upheaval, a clear eye for what is really going on. And it has humour too, which is a feature you rarely find in documentaries. The film makes us understand in every way – intellectually and visually – what structural change means.
Divine Location“ can also be interpreted as a description of life as a form of applied surrealism, a comedy with grotesque and absurd moments. The anarchistic Canada geese that were not planned for, but prematurely populate the shore and shit in the planners‘ crystal-clear lake. The uninvited visitors coming to swim and have barbeques, who can’t be kept away, even with millions of signs put up banning them from the area. And then the city and the development company invite Larry Hagman to the opening, the boss from „Dallas“, who obviously doesn’t have a clue what he’s meant to be doing there: The past is supposed to lead to the future. You see it all and think: This is absolutely crazy.“
Jurybegründung Grimme-Preis 20