DIE ÜBERLEBENDEN

High school reunion, graduation class of 79: we meet again after 16 years. Three of us are missing, they have committed suicide in the intervening years. Shortly after graduation – 1979: Thilo, long hair, runs up a hill. Thilo is a fighter, for his music, for more justice in the world. Thilo breaks free and disappears to France with a buddy. They steal a car, end up in jail. A turning point? Thilo wants to study medicine.

Rudi, son of a greengrocer. At the horizontal bar, he can’t do much more than hang there like a wet sack. Rudi is popular, a ‘sweet guy’. He graduates with an ‘A’ average. His father wants him to become a lawyer. Ruid quits law school aftedr twoo semesters. He goes to Scotland as an assistant at a College. He has never felt better. After one year he returns to Stuttgart. Something is wrong with him. Three weeks later he is dead.

Tilman. He played music with Thilo. He leavves highschool after 11th grade, begins an apprenticeship as a metalworker. He moves to Berlin to avoid military draft. Thilo visits him there. He has few friends. One morning he goes into a garage, closes the gate and turns on the motor. When Tilman dies, Thilo reports himself to the police. But nobody believes him. Two years later Thilo also goes into a garage.

A film about a Stuttgart suburb, about the attempt to break away – and about people who have remained. What emerges is the portrait of a whole generation, one that has fallen through the grid of history.

Aus: Internationales Forum des jungen Films, Berlin 1996/4 , zitiert nach Katalog 11. Internationales Dokumentarfilmfestival München 1996

Encounter with Director Andres Veiel, Filmreviewer Rainer Gansera, presented by Dr. Armin Riedel (in German)