After the Crash. Cécile Wajsbrot and Hito Steyerl
4/16/2026, 8 PM

Writer Cécile Wajsbrot talks to filmmaker Hito Steyerl about her recently published book Offener Himmel (Open Sky). Steyerl's video work In Free Fall inspired Wajsbrot's novel about a plane crash.

“After the Crash” is the title of the first part of Hito Steyerl's video work In Free Fall. This could just as easily have been the title of Cécile Wajsbrot's latest novel. In her book Offener Himmel, she recounts an event that she seeks to unravel and thus explain a disappearance that occurred over 60 years ago.

Hito Steyerl's video work inspired Cécile Wajsbrot to examine the story of a supposed accident. What happened in 1961, when an Air France plane crashed over the Algerian desert, obviously killing her godmother, who was a flight attendant.

On the occasion of the book premiere, Hito Steyerl's film In Free Fall will also be shown. In their conversation, Cécile Wajsbrot and Hito Steyerl explore, among other things, the question of humanity's fascination with flying, but also with falling and crashing.