Barbara Albert: Northern Skirts (Nordrand)

Northern Skirts (Nordrand), Barbara Albert, 103’, Austria / Germany / Switzerland, ZDF 10.9.2001, Original German version

In 1995, Barbara Albert writes the script of her first feature-length film. “It all began in 1990, when the Iron Curtain fell and we felt young and ready to decide whether to bring children into this world. The war turned our worldview upside down.” Meaning the war in Bosnia, which, through the influx of refugees, has shaken the city to its proletarian core. Death and displacement on one side of the border, military parades and nationalism on the other. And thus, two abortions mark a central moment in the film, when the school friends Jasmin and Tamara cross paths. Various men gradually group around the two women. In diverse languages, they are all searching for a future and their dreams are as much part of the film as reality.

Barbara Albert (*1970) is an Austrian film director, scriptwriter and producer living in Berlin. Her feature films have been screened in Venice and Locarno and won many awards. She made her first feature-length film Northern Skirts (1999) in cooperation with Das kleine Fernsehspiel, and as producer Grbavica: The Land of my Dreams (2009) by Jasmila Žbanić.