Retrospektive
Films from Loekenfranke
Ruhrtiennale 2023

SCREENING

Six films from the list of works
Metropolis Kino, Bochum
A part of Ruhrtriennale 2023




“A festival of the arts also includes the art of film. In cooperation with the last remaining station cinema in Germany, the Metropolis in Bochum’s main station, we are showing a retrospective of the Witten-based film collective loekenfranke, which has shaped the view of the Ruhr region like no other. Their award-winning long-term documentaries tell of major social upheavals, of consolation and perseverance, of disappearing and staying, of work and home, of a city that is reinventing itself and the struggle to preserve a great love.”
(Excerpt from the festival catalog)


TRAILER


SCREENING

2023  — Ruhrtriennale (Filmretrospektive)
Metropolis Kino, Bochum
And the Stars Lie Before Me… (D 1998, 90 min)
Introduction: Judith Gerstenberg more
Herr Schmidt und Herr Friedrich (D 2001, 72 min)
Introduction: Barbara Frey more
Losers and Winners (D 2006, 100 min)
Introduction: Mischa Leinkauf more
Home Hope Opel (D 2012, 90 min)
EIntroduction: Mats Staub more
Divine Location (D 2014, 114 min)
Introduction: Aljoscha Begrich more
We Are All Detroit (D 2021, 119 min)
Introduction: Judith Gerstenberg more


PRESSE

“Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Friedrich – back in the cinema after years! […] We travel into a petty bourgeois world, a perfect marriage, a life full of passion for the trivial. The film reports from the German provinces beyond voyeurism, exposure and malice. The two men let us participate in their lives, they captivate and amaze us, move us and, above all, make us laugh. […] “Herr Schmidt und Herr Friedrich” is part of a retrospective that honors Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken’s work of the last 25 years.”
Queer.de / August 2023

“What all the films have in common is that there are two people behind the camera who look very closely and have a big heart for their protagonists. […] And while watching, it becomes clear: no actor in the world could play this so well”
Sven Westernstroer, WAZ / August 9 2023

“The arts also include the art of film. […] With precise observation of people and landscapes, Loekenfranke proves that supposedly unwieldy topics such as urban development and the world of work can also be told in a colorful, profound and exciting way. […] Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken are outstanding players on the German documentary film scene. The Ruhrtriennale had a good idea in dedicating a retrospective to both of them. Interesting for contemporaries, not only for cineastes.”
Martin Burkert in WDR3 Mosaik

“These two ultimately tell the whole story of the Ruhrtriennale and the Ruhr region in one go — it is the story of demolition and departure.”
WDR5 Morgenecho

“Loekenfranke’s film documents […] are both sober and profound, melancholy and humorous, sharply analytical and playful. The beauty is that they cannot be categorized. They are free.”
Barbara Frey, Ruhrtriennale festival catalog


PICTS


TEXT

And the Stars Lie Before Me… The life of Renate Kern: her eternal search for identity, her career and her failure as a pop starlet and finally her suicide in 1991. A piece of West German reality and its consolation scenarios in German pop music.
Herr Schmidt und Herr Friedrich Province. The love affair between Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Friedrich began many years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when one was a commercial clerk in the West and the other was a waiter in East Berlin. A journey into the German past and into German provincial life.
Losers and Winners Dortmund. 400 Chinese workers break the coking plant Dortmund Kaiserstuhl down into its individual parts and ship them back home. A story from the globalized economy.
Home Hope Opel Bochum. A portrait of six trainees at the Opel plant in Bochum, their dreams and worries at the beginning of a working life with an uncertain future.
Divine Location Dortmund. A new district is being built on the site of a former steelworks in Hörde. In the center is an artificial lake, on the banks of which luxurious apartments are being built. Planners and residents, visionaries and doubters become the winners and losers of what is called social progress. A film about the transformation of industrial society into a leisure society.
We Are All Detroit Bochum/Detroit. The industry is no longer needed. The people have to stay. After the departure of the car industry, two cities are in search of a new identity.


CREDITS

Retrospektive
Films from Loekenfranke
Ruhrtiennale 2023

Six films from the list of works
Metropolis Kino, Bochum
A part of Ruhrtriennale 2023

Directors: Michael Loeken, Ulrike Franke
Dramaturgy:
Judith Gerstenberg