GFF 2010: Cutting Lines

Cynthia Beatt explores the fading boundary of the Berlin Wall in her two documentaries, The Invisible Frame and Cycling the Frame, which open the Glasgow Shorts Film Festival tonight.

Feature by Gail Tolley | 19 Feb 2010

In 1988 filmmaker Cynthia Beatt, along with actor Tilda Swinton and sound artist Simon Fisher Turner, cycled the route of the Berlin Wall, documenting the unique nature of one of the world’s most famous urban divides. Last year the group returned to the city to retrace their journey, ten years after the fall of the Wall, and observed the changed landscape on both sides of the Wall. The resulting two films, Cycling the Frame and The Invisible Frame, will be shown together as part of the opening night of the Glasgow Short Film Festival and will be introduced by the director herself.

The CineSkinny caught up with Cynthia Beatt before the festival for a quick chat about the project:

At GFF you will show The Invisible Frame first and then Cycling the Frame after - what were your reasons for showing them in this order?

Each film is interesting in itself, but when shown together I feel it necessary and desirable to create new tensions and expand them beyond the aforesaid. In The Invisible Frame, Tilda reflects on the sense of the Wall being more present now that it is gone. This is one of many aspects that is illuminated by showing Cycling the Frame after The Invisible Frame.

What was the one thing that stood out for you when retracing the old boundary? Was there an over-riding emotion that you came away with after the experience?

It's hard to choose. Perhaps the elation of riding the bike for long stretches in the summer, circumventing half of the city, while absorbing an enormous amount of thought-provoking imagery and information. There was a moment, however, which remains vivid - I stood on a hill in the south of Berlin where we had filmed 21 years before and could clearly see the long white line of the Wall cutting through the landscape, and this time, although the line was still marked by the meeting of fields with trees, I felt a sense of vertigo, of falling towards the endless expanse of open territory that reached western Europe and the Atlantic Ocean and further. When one has experienced being cordoned in for so long the effect of release is enormous, though I imagine that few people consider the psychological workings of this.

Little of the wall remains today - do you think it's a concern that if the concrete structure is removed from sight then what it symbolises might also slip from our thoughts?

Absolutely. That is precisely what happens. It is also what most people want. It is shocking to consider that after 20 years the large majority of people under 25-30 have absolutely no experience of the Wall and therefore no knowledge of what it meant. There is one memorial at the Bernauer Strasse (although there are neighbours who wish it torn down) with a very good information centre and the recent establishment of a memorial at the former Marienfelde reception center and transit camp for people fleeing the German Democratic Republic (1.35 million people passed through it). The move to reflect on and document the history of the Wall and the partition of Germany is slowly gaining momentum.

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