Hexenschuss

The initial idea was to make a children’s film about chocolate-covered marshmallows. How they are made, what they are made of, where they are made, who manufactures them under what conditions. The women who work on the assembly line are happy to tell us all about themselves. We are a welcome diversion. We noticed that the men have the better jobs and also earn more money. The women don’t entirely let themselves be taken in by the meritocracy. Talking, goofing off, and singing, they help each other to get through their 8-hour day. We like that. We drop the idea of a children’s film. In this film we tried out a documentary film form that deliberately does without interviews, relying instead largely on the effect of the images. From today's perspective the film alsooffers a glimpse into the history of migration in West Germany.

The film combines documentary scenes, TV clips, and passages from an interview with the then Postmaster General Christian Schwarz-Schilling in a fictional plot and mixes video and 16mm film. A film on videotext and the brave new media world, in which the – presumably first – female hacker redirects a few things into other channels. It is also a critique of the working conditions in the emerging information service industry.