Volker Koepp: In Sarmatien

Volker Koepp’s film is a journey through Sarmatia. In ancient times, Sarmatia was the name given to the region between the Vistula, the Volga, the Baltic and the Black Sea, which is occupied today by the countries of Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. The filmmaker travels through the region and talks to people about their homes, lives and dreams. He was also influenced by the works of the poet Johannes Bobrowski, who explored this region and wrote about it.

Director Volker Koepp on the current reasons for re-screening:
“Ever since reading Johannes Bobrowski’s book of poems Sarmatische Zeit in 1962, I had been mentally preoccupied with old maps in this geographical and cultural region east of the Vistula. Later I made films with people in these territories between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Attempts to tell something about the relationship of the Germans with their eastern neighbours and about the relationships between the peoples there – ‘among them always Jewry as well’ (Bobrowski). In 2012, while preparing to shoot In Sarmatien, I met Tanja Kloubert, a native of Czernowitz, a participant and also a collaborator in our films. She told me then that Russia would make war in Ukraine. There would be bloodshed. I didn’t think at the time that it would be possible. When the film was screened at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin on 16 March 2014 during the cinema release, the annexation of Crimea was almost complete. War in Eastern Europe has been going on for eight years now. The hopes of the 1990s for ‘a time without fear’ have now been dashed for the immediate future with the barbaric invasion of Ukraine.”

An event of the Film and Media Arts Section, Volker Koepp (director and member of the Akademie der Künste) and the film distributor Salzgeber

Donations are requested for the relief initiative Ukraine-Hilfe Berlin, which is currently providing support locally and for refugees.