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Stolz & Eigensinn

Pride & Attitude
Forum 2025
© realistfilm
The views of female employees of large factories in a country that no longer exists. Pride & Attitude. A title appropriately settled at the intersection of Kluge/Negt and Jane Austen. The protagonists in Gerd Kroske’s latest survey of the past and the state of affairs in the context and afterlife of East Germany are concerned with both – labour power and questions of women, as in questions about possibilities as a woman to work, participate actively in social life and achieve self-realisation. Or the question of why men take these issues for granted, ultimately regardless of the political system. “The mantle of history blows in favour of those with enough breath to determine the direction of the wind,” states Christa Wolf in a quote at the start of the film. Woman, East Germany, West Germany: Kroske creates an experimental set-up with split screens and asks, “What was once gained – what is lost?” The film presents U-matic footage of female industrial workers in the early 1990s shot by Leipzig’s Kanal X to document real dismantling and layoffs. An archival find. Today, the same women speak again about the loss of their hard-won sovereignty. A multi-channel film.
by Gerd Kroske (Director, Screenplay)
with Silke Butzlaff, Steffi Gänkler, Ingrid Kreßner, Bärbel Grätz, Ulla Nitzsche, Brigitte Jahn, Christel Bradler, Cornelia Patzwald, Monika Schumann, Isabell Radecke-Aurin Germany 2025 German 113' Colour & Black/White World premiere | Documentary form

With

  • Silke Butzlaff
  • Steffi Gänkler
  • Ingrid Kreßner
  • Bärbel Grätz
  • Ulla Nitzsche
  • Brigitte Jahn
  • Christel Bradler
  • Cornelia Patzwald
  • Monika Schumann
  • Isabell Radecke-Aurin

Crew

Director Gerd Kroske
Screenplay Gerd Kroske
Cinematography Anne Misselwitz, Jakobine Motz
Editing Andreas Zitzmann
Music Klaus Janek, Michael Thieke
Sound Design Pierre Kirchoff, Michael Kaczmarek, Oliver Prasnikar
Producer Gerd Kroske

Produced by

realistfilm

Photos

Gerd Kroske

Gerd Kroske was born in 1958 in Dessau. After training as a concrete craftsman, he delivered telegrams, and later moved into cultural work with young people. Kroske studied Cultural Sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and Directing at the Academy for Film and Television Konrad Wolf in Potsdam-Babelsberg. From 1987 to 1991, he worked as a writer and dramaturge at the DEFA documentary studio. Gerd Kroske has been making his own films since the autumn of 1989, and founded the realistfilm production company in 1996. The Austrian Film Museum and the DHM dedicated retrospectives to him.

Filmography

1989 Cassiber; 30 min. · Leipzig im Herbst (Leipzig in the Fall); 50 min. 1990 La Vilette; 52 min. · Kehraus (Sweeping); 28 min. 1991 Kurt – oder du sollst lachen (Kurt – You Shall Laugh); 30 min. 1994 Vokzal-Bahnhof Brest (Terminus Brest); 91 min. 1997 Kehrein, kehraus (Sweep it Up, Sweep it Down); 70 min. · Galeria; 101 min. 2000 Der Boxprinz (The Boxing Prince); 97 min. 2004 Autobahn Ost (Highway East); 90 min. 2006 Die Stundeneiche (The Our Oak); 60 min. · Kehraus, wieder (Sweep it Up, Again); 100 min. 2007 Wollis Paradies (Wolli in Paradise); 60 min. 2008 Schranken (Bounds); 95 min. 2012 Heino Jaeger – Look Before You Kuck; 120 min. 2014 Striche ziehen (Drawing a Line); 96 min. 2015 Grenzpunkt Beton (Circuit End Point); 20 min. 2018 SPK Komplex (SPK Complex) 2025 Stolz & Eigensinn (Pride & Attitude)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2025