Refugee in Film

Text by Friedericke Suckert

It’s 2015 and every day thousands of refugees try to reach the supposedly safe Western Europe. Beneath all the artisans and doctors, a lot of artists want to live a better life. But how will this be possible? Beside the big amount of money, you need networks and friends, your aesthetics should work in a different cultural context or fill a new niche. Thinking about all those adversities it’s time to research all those historic exile artists, their influence and their failures.

The biggest refugee crisis of modern times took place in 1933-1945. When Nazi Germany occupied Europe, a lot of Jewish, communist, LGBTIA*, Sinti and Roma and other people were forced to flee where ever they could get a visa to.

It’s no secret how much German filmmakers influenced Hollywood. One of the most important ones is Marlene Dietrich, who emigrated in 1930 for the „Blue Angel“ by Josef von Sternberg. (Fun Fact: Hitler’s first camera lady Leni Riefenstahl also having been one of his favorite girls for this part.) Dietrich became a legend and a super star, she supported the U.S. American troops during World War II and was treated like a traitress in Germany afterwards. She never returned, although she worked a lot in Europe. Marlene Dietrich is one big name for success, but no one really knows how many actresses and actors failed overseas. A lot of them were able to live because of the “European Film Fund”, established in 1938 for the support of pursued Jewish filmmakers. Times were still rough, especially for the technicians. The Union for Film Workers paid a lot of attention that their U.S. American members still got enough jobs. The USA in general and Hollywood in particular didn’t offer a warm welcome to all those refugees in pure need.

A few were able to work in France in the beginning of the persecution. Max Ophüls and Richard Oswald for example, but as the occupation started they also had to leave.

Fritz Lang, the director of “Metropolis” left Germany in panic, even though Goebbels loved his work. He was able to work in Hollywood, also shot Anti-Nazi-Movies. But still, too many artists died in German concentration camps.

After the war, only a few of the expats returned to Germany and tried to process their hurting and dark experiences, like Peter Lorre and Fritz Kortner, but after six years of war and twelve of persecution, the Germans didn’t want to see anything about the past. They needed Operettes and comedy, no accusations of their own guilt.

The big film organization in the Soviet Zone of Germany was called DEFA, a governmental institution. They didn’t hesitate and exhibited the crimes of the Nazi regime. “The murderers are among us” is the first drama, taking place at the bombed and destroyed Berlin, about the exconcentration camp prisoner Susanne and an exsoldier, who try to move past their experiences. Most of the movies in the new GDR were communist propaganda, but the rules became loose year after year. A lot of old novels and Grimm fairy tales were staged, they’re still legendary, because of the beautiful and fond settings and the lovely story telling.

Time goes by and a lot of young directors and actors/actresses grew up. “The Beatles” and the “Rolling Stones” changed everything, young people dreamed of Beat music and freedom. And they put their dreams on the big screen. “Spur der Steine/Track of the Stones” in 1966 was rated as “non-socialistic”, so the director Frank Beyer wasn’t allowed to work for the DEFA for ten years. The pressure on the artists grew bigger and bigger, spies decomposed the scene and so people started to flee. Especially those who protested against the expatriation of the singer and songwriter Wolf Biermann were forced to leave the country and the creative scene changed a lot. On the other side of the Wall, a lot of them needed to start a new career, because no one knew or waited for them. A few actors like Manfred Krug became TV stars, but most of them worked on tiny province stages. Katharina Thalbach, a former Brechtactress, celebrated big successes, but she was one in a million, a big talent. Armin Müller-Stahl and Ulrich Mühe also worked in Hollywood and Punk icon Nina Hagen was able to start a new life in the USA, those were the lucky exceptions.

When the Wall came down, most of the expat film people were left in a grey zone: the East Germans could forgive them the betrayal, the West Germans still didn’t know them. So a lot of them were trapped in a kind of ‘Nostalgia’, did Cabaret and Boulevard. A functioning network kind of trapped in a certain circle of insiders. The prejudice started to fade and the East German drama schools grew popular again, well known for their intense and disciplined work with their protégées.

Another big part of “Exile movies” are the Iranian directors, who have to face the conservative Islamic regime.

The Iranian National Film Society was founded by Esmail Koushan and Farrok Ghaffari in 1949. Iranian movies aren’t like Hollywood or Bollywood movies: they’re not supposed to be a big office hit, they’re supposed to be alternative and aesthetic. Iran was an open minded society, a lot of young directors were trained in the 1970s. They travelled around the world, earned a lot of awards at big European Film Festivals and were loved for the unique Farsi beauty. That all ended with the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Ajatollah Chomeini’s soldiers burned down half of the theatres in the country, there was no minister for film anymore and every kind of Western art was persecuted. In 1975 Iran produced 68 films, in 2005 there were 26..

Nowadays the movies that are allowed are big commercial hits, stories about the Great Islamic Revolution or flat romantic comedies.

But the alternative filmmakers are very much active, there’s a big underground scene. Directors who are under house arrest make movies with their smart phones, put them on a USB and smuggle them to big Festivals like Cannes or Venezia. The last big success was “Taxi Teheran” by Jafar Panahi at the Berlinale 2015, where he won the Golden Bear. It’s about life nowadays, where he’s surrounded by spies and it’s hard to find a little niche where he can breathe. Iranian movies are often a simple observation of life itself. Also a lot of women are part of this underground scene. Their kind of story telling is very artistic and often kind of reflects the classic Persian culture. Like the work of Shirin Neshat. Most of Iranian don’t want to leave their country, even though they’re facing all these restrictions. The bond between them and their country is to thick. “You can’t make Iranian movies when you’re not in Iran.”

The new generation of female directors like Marjane Satrapi (“Persepolis”) and Ana Lily Amirpour (“A girl walks home alone at night”), who grew up in Europe and USA combine their Oriental origins and Western experiences into a new and more plain style of Persian culture.

European directors with foreign roots are also a big essential part of our culture! Fatih Akin, son of a Turkish foreign worker, is one of the best directors of our times. He shows the conflict between the Turkish roots and German society in a brutal way in “Gegen die Wand / Head-on”, but also the resulting subculture.

The French-Algerian director and actor Kad Merad is a superstar of French comedy, exposing the French clichés.

Culture Clash is a beloved and needed genre in European Film, the Brits are still the masters of it.

Well... The conclusion is: Refugees welcome! Alignment is a basic ingredient of film making and storytelling. We always need the input of foreign cultures and someone who holds a mirror towards us. Unfortunately, a lot of young artists won’t be able to develop their creativity if they can’t find a network or welcoming surrounding. Let’s hope they do and great things will happen.

Interview, styling and photography by Marcel Schlutt, Models are Elizabeth Ehrlich and Jacob Jungenkrüger, All fashion and hat by Esther Perbandt, Accessoires by Perlensäue, Portrait Esther Perbandt by Birgit Kaulfuss

It is very hard for me to describe my work. I could find a hundred words to describe it, but not sure if this is enough. So even worse for me to give you three words (often asked in interviews). How could you squeeze a free minded work made for personalities between 30 and 65 into such a small box? Whatever three words I would choose, there are millions of people who feel not attracted by them. I don’t like that. Who builds a different drawer, fall into it himself.

76

This is true love. I grew up in West Berlin, so literally on the island, how we used to say. When I went with my family to West Germany during holidays I always got the feeling of being something very special. People kept asking how it is to live on that island. And everybody seemed to know that in West Berlin all the cool people live or move to: The hippies, the conscientious objector, the rebels, the musicians.... I remember that it made me proud. Being a kid in West Berlin I never felt the borders, but I know that it was something else for my parents.

I don’t remember how I actually got the news, if I was told by my mother or from the radio. I came back from school and was supposed to have a drum set lesson that afternoon but I didn’t go. I didn’t even give notice to my teacher. I thought there are more important things to do and see this afternoon. I just went straight away to the Brandenburger Tor and sat there on the barrier and looked down to the wall of police who still stood there irritated and didn’t know what to do.

I was not that much part of the techno scene in Berlin. I played drums in a political singer songwriter band of which I, back then, didn’t even understood the lyrics myself. Most of the weekends I spent in our rehearsal cellar and hung out with the three guys of my band, half of them at least six years older than me. During Love Parade I was mainly working at a Bungee Jumping like thing called “Super Swing“. Three sixty metre high towers that were standing on Potsdamer Platz, where there was not one single building back then. You were hanging in a hang glider harness between two of the towers. Another wire pulled you up to the third tower, sixty metre high. With a release cord you could loosen yourself and fall into a super swing. I had to do show jumping and get the people ready or jump with them if people didn’t dare alone. You had all these crazy freaks from love parade there. It was a hell of a time! Despite that, I do somehow miss all these little illegal bars and clubs where you had to enter via a window. There was so much to discover.

I grew up without a television. My biggest fun was playing with a huge box of garments to dress up. My sister, Sarah, and I had this box since we were very little, I would say I was only 3 years old. There was one tank top (back then it was a dress for me) in bright yellow, blue, red and black block stripes. It was my favourite one and

I wanted to wear it all the time over years (no worries, I don’t remember that, but I was told). I still have this piece in my closet. It is somehow very important to me. When I look at it, I can still understand why I loved it so much. Maybe it is important to me because it was a first sign. We played with this box for a very long time, even as teenagers. I realized that I like to play with identities. And apparently I kept on doing that.

Yes, I made trousers out of an old millefleur printed cotton. But I couldn’t wear it, because I ignored the necessary pattern cut of the crotch. I was very frustrated. I think I was 9 or 10 years old.

I kept on trying things myself. And yes, I did garments for my Barbie dolls When I was about 12 years old I had two ideas of a profession: architect or costume designer. For becoming an architect I was told that I am too bad in mathematics, so I did a school internship with the costume designer at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz. I couldn’t even finish it because I became so ill as I was so shocked at how much a costume designer needs to work! I saw my life dream melting away. But then I decided to switch from costume to fashion (which was of course was a much better idea). During school I started doing classes in fashion illustration in my free time, and somehow tha’ts the story. The rest is known!

To be honest, I think I was somehow guided. I don’t remember the moment, where I asked myself, “Hey Esther, where do you wanna go?”. The option was there and I took it. But I do get your point. If you see my work today you might think that this fits much better to New York or London. I remember that I wrote a message to my boyfriend who I left behind in Berlin, the moment when I arrived in Paris, “I love it, everywhere is music, the city, the subway and everybody looks so elegant.” Paris and France was definitely the finishing of the raw diamond concerning style, elegance and femininity. I did learn so much in France, the beautiful language of course, moreover a lot about myself. But I would not call it amazing all of the time! They have been very tough years, the school in Paris has a very high level and demand, the apartment was a shithole, I had no money for going out. I stressed myself so much that I got very ill and more and more I lost the capability of seeing colours and straight lines.

After I finished IFM I had some job interviews in Paris. One was at Kenzo, I think it went well, but before they came back to me I had the offer from a designer friend to join him as a design assistant for Chacok. He also did IFM, but a year before me, and got hired as Head of Design. The third new hired person was a product manager from Kenzo. Chacok back then wanted to renovate the image of the brand which got old with their customers and we were chosen to fly down there and rock da house. It was a 24/7 job. Difficult to enter, like a virus a company which has been guided by somehow family and friends since the 70s. My friend got fired after one season, there was no new Head of Design, so I had all of the sudden the full responsibility over the design for one season. But the company didn’t communicate that and didn’t allow me to go on the catwalk after the show in Paris. Still I am doubting if I would have the balls to do my own business without that experience. Cote d’Azur is not a place for young people. Only work, no friends, no family, but a high cellphone invoice caused by my homesickness. I would still and always say, “Je ne regrete rien!”

After my time in France I definitely needed some time to recover and came back to Berlin to recharge my batteries. My plan was actually to go back to Paris and apply for jobs over there, I never had in mind to start my own business. That was in spring 2003. Running around Berlin I felt the dynamic in the fashion scene which got bigger during that time: It was the first

or second season of Bread and Butter and Premium and there was definitely something in the air. Moreover, I was fed up with homesickness and decided to stay. Despite the dynamic and the scent in the air there was no job to find. So luckily, with the biggest portion of naivety which you can find on this planet, I started the label Esther Perbandt. No business plan, no money, no idea, but a little funny collection which was back then still crazily colourful.

I didn’t know any business people, but I did have a lot of support by friends and family. Not in a financial way, but psychologically and manpower wise. My mother always supported me in my creative ideas. My stepfather was not at all happy about my decision. He probably guessed that I would have 15 very hard years in front of me. Luckily I didn’t know that.

Oh yes, my atelier always had and has a nick name, ‘Palace of Tears’. I was questioning it a lot, I was desperate, I was left without any power, but I always thought, “What else can I do? I have to do this, and I will fight for it and one day it will work out.” Friends did ask, “how can you still sleep at night?” Luckily I do sleep like a stone, whatever happens. Probably it’s what helps me surviving, lots of sleep!

Berlin is my root, so it is definitely part of it. I was born here, I have experienced important historic moments here and the feeling that Berlin is something special hasn’t left me yet, although of course it has changed a lot, and not only in a good way. But I guess that it is rather the root, which is delivering me the juice for inspiration, than the actual physical presence here.

This sentence is a very important one for me. I do believe in miracles. They do happen. Otherwise I could not explain why I and my label are still on the market. There are a lot of people who do believe in me, who trust me, who push me forward. This is also miracle like and I am more than grateful fort that. Besides the collection was dedicated to the seven million analphabeths in Germany. Reading a book makes me feel alive, and it’s hard to imagine that so many people are not able

to share this pleasure. From that background I had the idea with the black catwalk and the models walking with long wooden sticks with attached chalk at the end. While pulling these sticks behind them, they left lines and marks on the catwalk and somehow write. With this show I supported the charitable association, ‘Kopf Hand und Fuss’, which is developing the first app for analphbets.

Oh this is really unromantic. There is not a fixed time when to start. I mean there should be one, but as there is always so much to do parallel, this date is being pushed again and again. Often a new collection starts with a title. I am very easily hooked by words. Then this title gives me the overall atmosphere for the collection. But you have to imagine that rather like a new chapter in a diary. You don’t really see later what you read. Then I continue first with styles and details, but in general it is always an Esther Perbandt collection and I am not reinventing the wheel. Even during the last weeks before finishing a collection I am mainly sitting in front of the computer all day long and doing daily business.

The guys are the severe critics but the more challenging ones. Unfortunately a lot of women spend a lot of money for garments no matter how they are made or produced. Most important fact: they feel sexy in it. Luckily, I don’t deal that much with those species, as my garments are rarely sexy by themselves. The piece becomes sexy by the woman who is wearing it and who is making is curious to discover what is underneath.

I always work mainly with natural material: wool, cotton, viscose, silk or newer fibres like hemp, milk, bamboo. I try to get them mainly from Italy or France as I try to produce my products as much as my business allows it in a sustainable way. Unfortunately I can’t control where my suppliers always get their fabrics from. I find my material on fabric fairs with suppliers I have worked with for a long time already.

I am fed up with people talking negative about Berlin. They should shut up because they are

killing our energy. People shouldn’t be surprised if one day there are no designers left in Berlin. There are still a large amount of designers who work their arse off to keep up the image of the free creative city Berlin. They make great presentations and shows, small concepts, big concepts in great offsite locations or even like I did, try to change the boring band-conveyor handling in the tent. I had my very first bad critic from the Tagesspiegel last fashion week. They apparently send someone to watch fashion and fashion events who doesn’t like fashion and has no spirit of creativity. It was quite interesting for me to deal with that critic as it was the first one I’ve had in my career so far. Of course it did hurt, but this person didn’t leave one good comment on any of the designers. I really ask myself what his intention was. To eliminate Berlin of designers? No problem, he is heading the right way. I am also fed up with discussions about Berlin becoming the new fashion metropolis. I wish Berlin more self confidence, it’s a great city with a lot of potential. I recently saw a film about the crazy free minded art projects in the 90s in Berlin. There is still a little bit left of it, but not much. In our permanent ambition to become like someone else, like another city, like another fashion metropolis, we risk to lose the very last part of it.

There are a few projects and support from the government, for sure it might not be comparable with London or Paris, but it would be unfair to say that there is nothing. Some years ago we were complaining that the government support cake is divided into far too many tiny cake pieces which only helps designers to survive one more week. I was always asking to shape bigger cake pieces in order to build up a few designers which will one day become big and carry the figurehead of Berlin. And to decide which ones that should be, was not in my hands. We all have our favourite ones, no matter what, and probably it’s something very human to act according to that. I’ve had hundreds of interns by now and there were ones I really loved, there were ones I did like a lot and there were ones who I liked less. I can’t avoid it. Of course for an organization like that one, I do wish a bit more of objectivity. But once again, a cage full of humans. There are two options, you can either accept that or waste time and energy complaining about it. I don’t think that you change a single thing with screaming loudly, at least this is not my method. If you are not in the chosen inner circle, you just carry on being diligent and find other people to support you.

I totally understand your opinion and I did / do have the same in general. I empasise in general, because my opinion is changing or has to change. There are millions of blogs which have basically no quality at all, but there are also quite a lot which do help the designers. My nickname is ‘Granny’, not because of my age, but because I am somehow a very old fashioned person. I would describe myself as someone who needs a long time to follow quick changes in technologies and trends. I love gentlemen and good behaviour in a funny way I like the ‘Knigge’ book and I stick to good and old values. I was resenting blogs and blog requests for quite a long time, because I just didn’t want to understand it. I am now slowly getting myself into it, just because I see how important it gets. I don’t work closely with any bloggers but I could imagine to build up an inspiring cooperation with someone who has the same approach.

Oh I am sorry, I definitely can not. First of all I do not care that much about trends. I hardly check them myself. This is a way of rescuing me from getting insecure about my own way of thinking and my work and also rescuing me from copying. Most creative people are very sensitive and open-cell like. They get easily hooked by beautiful things, words, atmospheres. Sometimes without realising it you soak something like a sponge, you digest it and you make it to something else or sometimes something very similar. But second and maybe more important, I don’t want to tell someone what to wear. We are not living in a dictatorship. I am more than happy if I hit the taste of various people with my designs. But what a sad term actually this is: A must have! My nickname is ‘Granny’ not because of my age, but because I am somehow a very old fashioned person.

I get quite a lot of requests from talent agencies, asking if I would like to dress one of their clients. I rarely agree as most of the time it is a person in an agency who believes that this might fit. But in the end those people just look dressed up and personality and the garments don’t melt into each other. You can right away tell, that they would never wear something like that in their free time. I would like those people like musicians and actors or whoever to discover my style themselves. Then it becomes an authentic story for both. I know that this is the much longer way to get publicity but I do prefer it that way. To answer your question, of course I do dream of some great personalities and I am sure our ways will cross one day.

Oh wow, well I can’t avoid dreaming sometimes of myself in 2030 laying in my garden of my little house in the south of France (which I am dreaming of owning then) and writing a book. But let’s be honest, I would be bored after two weeks latest. Having my own brand is my life, my dream, my baby. I will still be there, bigger, stronger, wiser. And the brand will have more products, more sales points, more concepts, more fantastic big projects with inspiring people. I am so much looking forward to it.