So Why Make a Film About These People

This was my first student documentary I shot it over the Easter vacation in 1980 on 16mm blackandwhite reversal film Apart from two fiveminute exercises it was destined to be the only film I ever finished at the College of Film and Television of the German Democratic Republic Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR HFF in East Germanys PotsdamBabelsberg It was quickly banned from being shown publicly and it remained in storage until the end of 1989 The film tells the story of a mother and her sons having coffee and cake while they try to remember in vain when the first time was that they tangled with the police The reason it was banned was the casual way the film portrayed those young men living their lives untouched by ideology including taking their careers as petty criminals for granted meaning the films author accepted their existence as is and simply wanted to explore it