Aufmerksam zugewandt. Begegnungen mit Kristina Konrad . Ein Werkstattgespräch

Kristina Konrad is a guest at the hamburg documentary film week with a showcase of her work.

One might think that an attentive and honest interest in the protagonists is a matter of course. And yet, when you see Kristina Konrad's films, this is precisely what seems extraordinary. There must be a quality behind it that is particularly her own, an immediately noticeable dedication and generosity. With a loose assignment from Swiss television, Kristina Konrad moved to Latin America in the early 1980s, where she was to become a participant chronicler of various freedom struggles and political upheavals. First in Nicaragua in 1986 with fighters of the Sandinista Revolution, then 20 years later in the neoliberally transformed country. Kristina Konrad usually meets women, often stubborn idealists or resistance fighters. The filmmaker often finds them in moments of upheaval, in places where a system is overthrown, where the utopia of a socialist society emerges or years later, when the revolutionary moment has long since passed. In her films, she is interested in the personal, human attitude behind the political realities. And so her attention extends to everyone she encounters: People on the streets of Uruguay, whom she casually engages in conversations about the nature of democracy; a young entrepreneur in Oxford; her own mother, whom she accompanies as she ages. The form of her films is always guided by her inquiring and listening attitude, by her sensitive intuition in communicating with people and their stories. We are very much looking forward to presenting Kristina Konrad's films and even more to meeting her and talking to her about upheaval and idealism, filmmaking and activism.