mutterstadt

experimental | 8 min| 2023

The short film "mothercity" creates an analogy between a former industrial city, its ruins and the ageing female body.
It questions the decay and dealing with the traces of the past.

In "mothercity", the aging urban space of the Ruhr district city of Dortmund becomes an analogy of the ageing female body. The film traces a process of remembering. The text as a stream of consciousness makes the thoughts of the protagonists, who move back and forth between past and future, audible. They reflect on the relationship between body and urban space. Two old protagonists seek a dialog with their younger selves.

The starting point of the film is the assumption that both the human body and the urban space are archives: What do the city and the body have in common as repositories of memories? How are memories inscribed? Through rapid image changes of urban spaces with old and young bodies, the patina of the city is equated with the patina of the ageing body.