Miron Zownir: »Dead End« and »Bruno S. – Die Fremde ist der Tod«

For more than thirty years, photographer, writer and film director Miron Zownir has belonged to the most radical of present-day artists. He consistently confronts socially critical and taboo-breaking themes. After realizing eight short films in the U.S. as director and screenplay writer, he returned to his old home of Germany to make the anti-racist short film "Auf offener Straße [On the Open Road]" of 1993.

Miron Zownir dedicates the short film "Dead End" of 1992 to a group of young punk rockers from Pittsburgh, USA, whose lethargic boredom leads to bizarre sexual fantasies and a nightmarish death on a public street.

"Bruno S. – Die Fremde ist der Tod [The Stranger is Death]" is a documentary film of 2003, which highlights the life circumstances and past of Bruno S., born 1932 in Berlin. Having grown up in foster homes, psychiatric wards, and homeless shelters, he became known as Kaspar Hauser in Werner Herzog’s Film "Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle [Every Man for Himself and God against All]" (1975).

Zownir’s film shows Bruno S. not as a victim of institutions and prejudices, but as a person who, in spite all of his disadvantages, has found his way. Bruno S. attempts to defend himself against the injustices done to him, by painting pictures and carrying his musical instruments into homes in Berlin for over thirty years.