Biermann

1976 entzog die DDR dem auf einer Tournee durch den Westen befindlichen Liedermacher Wolf Biermann die Staatsbürgerschaft und ließ ihn nicht zurück ins Land. Doch statt damit das „Problem“ mit dem (damals) kritischen Kommunisten still zu lösen, sah sich die Staatsführung plötzlich mit einer beispiellosen Solidaritäts- kampagne konfrontiert. Die Episode steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Dokumentarfilms, in dem der fast 90-jährige Biermann sein Leben zumeist selbst erzählt: ein Schlüssel zum Verständnis des „sichtbaren Egomanen“ (O-Ton Armin Mueller-Stahl) und seiner Kunst, wie auch ein Blick auf die heillose Paranoia der DDR- Verantwortlichen im Umgang mit ihren Kritikern. (Lars Penning)

In Anwesenheit von Jens Meurer, Wolf Biermann und Pamela Biermann.

Shot on 16mm, BIERMANN is the portrait of a poet and songwriter whose life has been marked by the history of Germany in the twentieth century. Born in Hamburg in 1936, Wolf Biermann only met his father once, in prison, before the communist and Jew was murdered in Auschwitz. This experience gave Wolf Biermann his life calling: to fight injustice in general and to stand up for socialism in particular. Seeing East Germany as his homeland, he moved to East Berlin and became famous for his critical, fearless songwriting. The regime reacted by imposing an occupational ban. After twelve years of singing in his East Berlin living room, Biermann gave a concert in Cologne in front of 6000 people. It was 1976, the regime reacted again: Biermann was banned from re-entering East Germany, subsequently living in exile in West Germany. Apart from a few interviews with contemporaries and archive footage, BIERMANN consists of Wolf Biermann himself narrating his life. He is a passionate figure or, as the actor Armin Mueller-Stahl puts it, a “visible egomaniac” and the father of ten children. But his fatherhood is a side note in this two-hour documentary about a political artist who keeps the fire of rebellion alive to this day. (Anna Katharina Laggner)

Jens Meurer (Auswahl): VIVA STALIN (1994, K), EGOLI: MY SOUTH AFRICAN HOME MOVIE (1997), JECKES – DIE ENTFERNTEN VERWANDTEN (1998), PUBLIC ENEMY (1999), ZAUBERBERG (2018), AN IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT (2020), SEASIDE SPECIAL (2023)