Session 6

Am Siel
Peter Nestler, in collaboration with Kurt Ulrich
Federal Republic of Germany, 1962, 13 min, 35 mm transfer DCP, B&W, German

Ödenwaldstetten
Peter Nestler, in collaboration with Kurt Ulrich
Federal Republic of Germany, 1964, 36 min, 16 mm transfer DCP, B&W, German

Die Judengasse
Peter Nestler
Federal Republic of Germany, 1988, 44 min, 16 mm transfer DCP, colour, German 

Peter Nestler’s first film, made in collaboration with Kurt Ulrich, is a portrait of a small and quiet village in East Frisia in Germany, seen from the perspective of an old dike sluice. The text, written and narrated by poet and artist Robert Wolfgang Schnell, speaks about the history and life of the village and the toil of the fishermen. The film “mirrors Germany in a village”, as Nestler says, evoking the war and the change caused by the disappearance of traditional livelihoods.

Ödenwaldstetten is also a portrait of change, a film Nestler shot as a freelance assignment in the Swabian village of Ödenwaldstetten. It shows the life and work of the villagers and how much the process of industrialisation affected life in this agricultural community. We witness how handicraft and traditional agricultural tools are discarded and replaced by high-tech equipment and assembly line production. The film is also about the history of Germany and its relentless economic path after the war.

The discovery of remains of the Jewish alley in Frankfurt motivated Nestler to reconstruct the centuries-long history of the Jews in the city in Die Judengasse. Despite the murderous period of German fascism, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, an astonishing amount of historical evidence about Frankfurt's Jews has survived. Nestler's film traces this history from the Middle Ages to the present day.