With his electronic Testament Berlin film-maker Gerd Conradt (*1941) looks back over 50 years of creative work. In Video Vertov he introduces the different periods of his life − from the 1968 students’ movement, the search for meaning in an Indian ashram through to the production of the film itself − with stage scenes, and presents the tools of documentary work: from the Super-8 , the 16 mm film through to video and HD. With his delight in experimentation, he is inspired by the Russian documentary film-maker Dziga Vertov.

Throughout his life Gerd Conradt was a searcher, interested in extremes and the transgressions of boundaries. His private life was powerfully influenced by politics and exerted a substantial impact in his films: he thus had contact with the RAF and is a friend of Holger Meins, about whom, among others, he made the film Starbuck – Holger Meins. With a retrospective on five decades of German history, Conradt masters the path from the private, via media history through to the universal − since video means I see.

The film music stems from the prog rock band Agitation Free, which went down in Berlin pop-history during the 1970s. By way of this special connection of sound and image a unique collaboration emerges: Berlin contemporary and pop-history becomes Berlin art of the present. An intoxication of time.

After the presentation a discussion on the main issues of the film and media sector will take place.

Other films by Gerd Conradt: Der Videopionier, Die Spree − Sinfonie eines Flusses.

Book: Daniela Schulz, Gerd Conradt
Camera: Hans Rombach (BVK), Gerd Conradt
Cut: Astrid Vogelpohl
Online and Sound Editor: Sebastian Schmidt
Music: AGITATION FREE, Gustl Lütjens, Frederic Rzewski, Ariel Shibolet
Production: kinoglas-films, Daniela Schulz
Duration: 90 minutes