Die Möllner Briefe
"I try to open up spaces" – A Portrait of director Martina Priessner
Martina Priessner was 23 years old when a arson attack was carried out on two houses in Mölln in 1992. This period which saw a growing number of racist attacks left its mark on her and fuelled her activism, as the director now recalls. Three people lost their lives in Mölln at the time, and the attack still continues to affect many others to this day. Ibrahim Arslan is one of the survivors. It wasn't until 2019 that he learnt that more than 900 letters had been written to his and other affected families as people expressed their sympathy and solidarity. However, none of the victims had ever known about these letters until that point. Mölln's municipal administration had gathered the letters and then taken them to the town archives without informing the victims' families.
Martina Priessner's new documentary "Die Möllner Briefe" ("The Moelln Letters") has her following Ibrahim and other members of the Arslan family as they try to find out why they had never heard about these letters which would have brought them some comfort. Priessner gets very close to the victims and their families, and consistently adopts their particular perspective. The film is impressive in the way it reveals how a mixture of structural racism, sloppiness, institutional failure and helplessness can exacerbate such a tragedy. But there are also glimmers of hope, especially in the open exchange between the protagonists, that leads to moving moments of rapprochement. The director explains that she always aims to create an atmosphere of trust. "I see myself as an ally, I try to open up spaces." Working together and on equal terms. And then there's the fact that she speaks Turkish fluently, something that can be a door-opener.
"Die Möllner Briefe" celebrated its world premiere at this year's Berlinale and was awarded the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film. It also received the Amnesty International Film Award and the Roman Brodmann Prize. Real Fiction will release the inselfilm production in German cinemas on 25 September. Priessner will accompany the film on a tour of the cinemas since it's already clear there will be a lot that needs to be talked about after the screenings. "I'm very curious about what will happen," the Franconian-born filmmaker says. The film is only the beginning and she would like to see further research being conducted into the events.
In fact, she always wanted to become a journalist and studied Social Sciences in Erlangen and later in Berlin. In Nuremberg, she worked at an independent radio station which brought her into contact with the German-Turkish Film Festival. She began learning Turkish more than 30 years ago and went to Izmir to improve her language skills. In 2008, she opened the Ballhaus Naunynstraße in Berlin with Shermin Langhoff working as a curator and dramaturge and helping to develop post-migrant theatre. Two years later, she made the documentary "Wir sitzen im Süden" ("Based Down South") which tells the story of call centre agents abroad and was nominated for the Grimme Prize. This was followed in 2013 by the found footage film "Everyday I’m Çapuling" about the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. She had come to the Turkish metropolis in 2012 with a scholarship and stayed there until 2017. Her film "650 Wörter" (2015) saw her interviewing eight people from different regions of Turkey who all want nothing more than to be able to live with their partners in Germany. She dedicated her next film, "Die Wächterin" ("The Guardian") (2020), to a Syrian Orthodox nun and won the Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize.
Priessner spent three years on and off filming "Die Möllner Briefe" – with a diverse team, something that was very important for her in such an activist film. It was clear to her from the outset that she wanted to be consistent in taking the victims' point of view: "We are always so focused on the perpetrators: everyone knows the names of the perpetrators, but no one knows the names of the victims. I wanted to show the families' strong position as active subjects." She points out that she wasn't interested in denouncing the mayor, but wanted rather to focus on the authorities and institutional racism. In general, the director wants to tell stories that would otherwise not be heard. "Who is actually allowed to tell stories, whose voices are being heard?" It is precisely these questions that she sees at the centre of documentary storytelling. That's why it is important for her to have a change in perspective in order to ask relevant questions. Her new project will also have a political theme: she is working on a documentary series about the continuities in right-wing terrorism and government failings in Germany.
Author: Marion Meyer