Barbara Albert talking to
Birgit Flos, Journalist

Contexts & Coincidences
At least once in our life we question ourselves about the meaning of it all. Maybe the answer is not at all profound. That's life. We're constantly searching for one thing to correspond to another, and so it's satisfying when things do reach full circle. By the same token, when we come across banal coincidences we are compelled to look for deeper meanings. Of course, we can ask whether these "meanings" really exist. Perhaps there is something to gain solely from the process of looking for them.

The Consumer Society
The phenomena of consumerism and capitalism, as well as the projection of desire onto objects has been decisive in the choice of the film's locations-fast-food restaurants, pedestrian precincts, supermarkets, shopping malls. These shopping temples have become part of the everyday landscape as they reveal a tendency to project a utopian ideal while being quite frightening. They also illustrate a kind of faith in consumerism, where, for example, a sweepstakes in a mall is supposed to bring happiness.

Aufstellungen and Systems
[Translator's note: Aufstellungen is a method of psychoanalysis which examines family situations and hierarchies, formulated by the German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger].

Aufstellungen are good for making psychic systems comprehensible. To look at a family situation, and realize something, to learn from it. Film is comparable to an Aufstellung because it also illustrates a system of dependencies. It's fascinating that both the living and the dead are present in this process. It's a matter of getting something from their memory - strength or support maybe. --