Life or Death of a City - A filmic Triptych

"Life or Death of a City" (“Über Leben oder Sterben einer Stadt”) is an experimental documentary about the structural change in Brandenburg, Germany (formerly East Germany) based on the example of a city, which is located 80 kilometres south of Berlin, right beside a biosphere reserve called “Spreewald”.

Once also located there was a coal-fired power station, which, at the time it was built, was one of the biggest coal-fired power stations in Europe. With the construction of the power station at the end of the 1950s, the medieval small town was expanded and transformed into an industrial city.

Since the withdrawal of the coal- and energy industry in the aftermath of political transformation in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 1990s the city has been confronted with a massive population decline, which forced the town community to undergo extensive structural changes – from that time on the city has built itself back and at the same time modernized itself thoroughly. Nowadays, the city is deemed a prime example of the so called “Stadtumbau Ost” (Urban Redevelopment East).

This filmic triptych documents the life of the city after its de-industrialization as well as the effects on the surrounding area caused by the inactive as well as the ongoing coal mining and the subsequent procedures to regenerate and protect these unique natural areas.