Zeit ohne Eltern

Jana Birner and Franziska Kriebisch were separated from their parents for years. What was done to them was perfectly ordinary for children of political prisoners in the GDR. In the 1980s, getting caught trying to illegally "flee the republic" or being engaged in subversive activities against the state landed parents in prison and their children in a home. Once such parents were eventually bought off by the West and reunited with their children after years, traumata and feelings of guilt completely impeded communication among the family members. It is primarily the now-adult children who talk about how they have experienced the time without their parents, and about the lingering influence it exerts on their present lives. This is Celia Rothmund’s graduation film at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Cologne.