Wolfgang Ettlich

It does not happen every day that a gigantic stadium is built on a greenfield: In October of 2001, the citizens of Munich voted with a clear yes for a new soccer stadium in the north of the city. 66,000 soccer fans of FC Bayern and 1860 Munich will find a new common home in the futuristic looking structure. But before that stand four years of work on a construction site of superlatives. The director Wolfgang Ettlich and his cameraman Hans-Albrecht Lusznat followed the construction of the new Munich soccer arena since the first groundbreaking. They have recorded several phases of the construction and did thereby get to know the microcosm of a large construction site from the inside: The logistics, with which hundreds of construction workers have to be coordinated, and the steady growth of the stadium all the way to the perfectly conceptualized illuminated structure, with VIP-boxes, mass restaurants, and Europe’s largest parking garage.

They do not earn millions, yet they are happy nonetheless: Maria Meissner (87), Josef “Sepp” Schmid (74), and Rudi Egerer (65) have spent most of their lives working for FC Bayern. Maria still cleanses the trophies nowadays, Sepp still washes and prepares the jerseys of the players in the basement, and Rudi is still the bus driver. They are simple people who may have access to the glamorous world of the big stars, but who never wanted to adapt to the ‘modern times’ unconditionally. They have remained side characters and experience their club from a special angle: Being witnesses of the development from a people’s sport to star cult and commercialisation.

The mining industry, which always had been “sponsor” and “financier” of the soccer clubs in the Ruhr valley during the post-war period, doesn’t exist anymore nowadays in that form. Many of the once glorious clubs which dominated German soccer until the 1970s faded into obscurity without financial backers. The documentary “Im Westen ging die Sonne auf" ("The sun had risen in the west“) shows the history of the “Revierfußball” from after the second World War until the decline of the mining industry and recalls legendary players and forgotten clubs. The film shows especially how deeply rooted the sport was back then in the entire lifestyle of the Ruhr area - in private life as well as in society - and how structural change also left clearly visible marks in sports. With pictures from back then, interviews with contemporary witnesses, and footage of original locations nowadays, a contemporary document of German post-war history, by taking the example of soccer, has been created.

A journey through time and East Germany, 30 years after reunification as well as the first trip that the director and cameraman undertook through the then newly collapsed GDR. A curious road trip has turned into a road movie as well as a document of time.

Energie Cottbus, a small soccer club from the periphery of the republic, got promoted to the first division of the Bundesliga. Everyone was sure: They will get relegated immediately again! But everything turned out differently! The underdog club gave Cottbus — which was to many only known from scare stories about lack of prospects and unemployment – joy, hope, and pride. The film looks behind the scenes and shares the thrill of the people for the finale of the season.

About a journalist and his cameraman visiting East Germany, former GDR, 25 years later again after their journey which took place in January 1990, just between the Fall of the Wall and the reunification with West Germany, comparing the old pictures with the present of 2015 and meeting former interview partners a second time. An impressive work of time documentary showing seemingly surreal scenes about the changings of cities, industrial locations and lifes in different political and economical systems.

Follows the Eastern German family Schütze and their greengrocer's shop for 10 years, beginning right after Germany's reunification.

Documentary film.