Medienwerkstatt Freiburg: Paßt bloß auf

Paßt bloß auf, Medienwerkstatt Freiburg, 74‘, FRG, ZDF 5.8.1982, Original German version

In 1980, Eckart Stein writes for Das kleine Fernsehspiel: “We feel that the time has now come for our editorial team to try to build a bridge between independent video filmmakers and television.” The first attempt, Passt bloß auf, is a collective film by the Medienwerkstatt Freiburg from the very heart of the squatter scene. “The fight is on”, says the film’s flyer, “the fight for an autonomous youth centre, the fight against the total redevelopment of our cities through planning, the fight against the destruction of the environment, which is guided solely by POWER interests, the fight against the destruction of the meaning of our lives - for where else is there meaning to life? The result is formally as diverse as the movement that emerged between punk, Spassguerilla (fun guerilla) and environmental activism.

The Medienwerkstatt Freiburg was founded as a media centre and video collective in 1978, among others, by the well-known filmmakers Didi and Pepe Danquart and Mirjam Quinte, with the aim of intervening in social processes, providing political education and creating a counter-public sphere. The collective’s body of work has been awarded the German Documentary Film Prize. In cooperation with Das kleine Fernsehspiel, they produced Passt bloß auf (1982) and Geisterfahrer (1987), amongst others. In 1984, Die lange Hoffnung – Erinnerungen an ein anderes Spanien featured in the Berlinale Forum.