After us, the Flood

Film Archived

After a long time Franz returns to his hometown Klein-Reibach to play with his brassband. The big anniversary celebration is coming. But he learns, that his hometown is in danger because of the old dam, that is about to burst. To save the village he has to revolt against the other inhabitants, who do not seem to care about the oncoming danger. A three act play.

Director: Christoph Hertel
Length: 19:06
Country: Germany
Language: German
Year: 2019

Additional Info

Director Biography: Christoph Hertel was born on 2 August 1989 in Kronach, where he graduated from high school in 2009. After his community service in Nuremberg, he completed an internship of almost one year at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg. From 2011 to 2015 he studied theatre and media studies as well as art history (B.A.) at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 2014/15 Hertel worked as assistant curator for the exhibition "What if" by British media artist Mark Leckey at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. In October 2015 he moved to the Bauhaus University Weimar, where he has just graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Media Art and Design with the film "After us, the flood". “After us the Flood” is his short film debut. In July he received the 2nd prize for Nach mir die Sintflut at the annual media art prize of the Bauhaus University.  

Director Statement: If you like, "After Me, the Flood" is an anti-catastrophe film: there are hardly any cuts, no close-ups, no action scenes. Following the form of folk or peasant theater, the cinematic-theatrical parable rather tries to negotiate the dilemma of mankind in a few static compositions. For instance, all special effects were deliberately built by hand - there are no computer-generated animations. For the final image, a 3m wide and 1m high model of a concrete dam was built over a period of two and a half months, through which an elaborately modeled miniature of Klein-Reibach was flooded with 2500 liters of water. Possibly this senseless effort was ultimately about anticipating the destruction of the world in the film and go through it in a performative self-experiment. Always aware that in the end, you probably can't achieve anything with art. No one will change their life because of a film. And so the entire, resource-intensive (1400€ for fuel alone!) film production remains a desperate attempt of changing the world: For the climate, it would have been better not to make a film. And with that, the dilemma of mankind is described quite well. Regarding the future, let's hope for the best: The show must go on...  

Cast: Thomas Kramer, Markus Fennert, Sophie Hutter, Matthias Herold, Elke Wieditz, Matthias Winde, Markus Seidensticker