In Memoriam Barbara Lüem

Johan van der Keuken pro­duced this cin­e­mat­ic essay call­ing for pro­tec­tion of the Wadden Sea. His aim was to reach the largest pos­si­ble audi­ence in order to raise aware­ness of our mutual inter­est in pre­serv­ing diverse ecosys­tems like the Wadden Sea. In his eyes, all sorts of people and things had their place in this par­tic­u­lar ecosys­tem, from the former fish­er­men now dig­ging up worms for a living to the baby sole and drill mus­sels. He didn’t view grow­ing pol­lu­tion – of the water and seabed – as posing the only threat to this ecosys­tem. As he saw it, the mech­a­niza­tion of worm col­lect­ing also threat­ened to destroy a vital branch of local indus­try that had devel­oped over time, along with its social, cul­tur­al, and emo­tion­al aspects. Employ­ing an inno­v­a­tive edit­ing tech­nique through­out the film, author van der Keuken asso­cia­tive­ly weaves togeth­er var­i­ous ele­ments and dimen­sions of the Wadden Sea, using the state­ments of its human ben­e­fi­cia­ries as a common thread. The result is an engag­ing homage to the Wadden Sea as a biotope and an ecosystem.

“The Wadden Sea, the hor­i­zon­tal as a land­scape. The ecol­o­gy of a big-city person. The con­nec­tion between the lit­tlest and the biggest. The quest for more. Lots of wind.“ (JvdK)

Silent movie with musi­cal accom­pa­ni­ment by Günter A. Buch­wald, Murat Coşkun and Shakir Ertek Mar­guerite Har­ri­son, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoed­sack travel through Asia Minor to reach a … read more