Artist in Focus: Peter Nestler by Courtisane festival

courtisane festival 2017 notes on cinema

Artist in focus: Peter Nestler 1945 – 1949 – 1955 – 1968 Peter Nestler

at Lake Constance—hitch-hiking, because my father could not afford the train. I was given a lift in an old Volkswagen for most of the way. The driver of the Beetle was a member of the newly formed Bundestag. He was prosecuted during the Nazi era. I have forgotten his name. Anyway, he was an honest man. For the whole journey he talked insistently to me, a twelve-year old boy, about his disappointment with post-war developments. He told me about all the Nazi criminals who were not made responsible for their actions, or merely charged with minor sentences, who conspired to help each other to regain their posts and honour secretly; aided in some cases by the Allies even. Cadres were in high demand, this is why the occupying forces invented the piggyback procedure: when a governmental position was filled with someone untainted, a former Nazi could be appointed in return. If a jurist without a Nazi past could get a post as a judge, then a former Nazi judge could also resume his position. The same method was applied to the police, universities, ministerial bureaucracy, and the whole

Stockholm, April 1998. Translation by Melanie Waha with Edwin Mak commissioned for the Lumen journal.

I witnessed 1968 from a distance, in fact. I moved from Germany to Sweden two years before. There was a ‘68 there too, but smaller, in this northern country with a population as large as in the Ruhr region. I was more ‘58. I was eight at the end of the war, and back then already I noticed the guilt that we Germans feel. There were emaciated women and children eating grass by the bank of the Krepbach, near our house in the Bavarian Alpine village of Grainau, one day in the spring of 1945. They were Hungarian Jews dispersed by one of the death marches coming from one of the countless concentration camps. Then, four years later, after the founding of the Federal Republic, I drove from my then home-town, Oberammergau, to the boarding school

Peter Nestler, A Documentarian Not Reconciled Jean-Marie Straub

of the public sector. Why did this member of the Bundestag tell me all this, and with so many examples? Maybe he wanted to let off steam, get rid of his frustration. Or he thought that an impression could be made on him—that the young are the hope, the young can start anew... Then all these years came in which silence or lies prevailed at school, in the newspapers, the newsreel, and the movies. There were exceptions too, but these I had to search for and find. There were also these other voices I heard sometimes in the pubs (whether I wanted to or not), the voices of the old fighters, of the SS or Wehrmacht, thoughtless drunken chitchat. How they played about with the MG42 at the forest glade; how they mowed down Russians and Partisans. They lowered their voices when they talked about Jews and Gypsies. But we, the teenagers of the ‘50s, often heard this horrible phrase uttered publically: “they have forgotten to gas him!”.

1966. First published in Italian as “Un documentarista non riconciliato,” in Gli Irrequieti: il cinema europeo tra conscienza della crisi e impotenza della rivolta, no 1, 1966-1967. Translated by Sally Shafto. Published in Writings. Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, edited by Sally Shafto, Sequence Press, 2016.

Peter Nestler has made seven documentaries, some for television, some at his own cost, and little by little people are saying they must be taken into account. Why little by little? These films are not going to appeal to viewers with superficial attractions; they ask that we look at them closely, a rare practice in cinema circles. Making documentaries is restrictive. You never have the occasion to show your artistic “self ” in a favorable light, to stamp on the world your personal imprint as a filmmaker, or even to cultivate different styles: the only thing that counts is modesty faced with what is before the camera; and it’s precisely in that that the director’s personality is revealed.

The Adenauer administration enforced the remilitarisation in contradiction to the Petersberg Agreement from November 1949 (“The Federal Republic further declares its earnest determination to maintain the demilitarisation of the federal territories, and to endeavour by all means in its power to prevent the re-creation of armed forces of any kind”). Because of the threat from the East almost everything was allowed. Not even the piggyback method was necessary any longer. The old guard, Hitler’s officers were involved. I witnessed the genocide when I was a child and did not want to become a German soldier. There was an individual solution—those who became a seaman could be drafted. The Merchant Navy lacked sailors. Thus, from June 1955 onwards I was a sailor, and visited parts of the world, which weren’t yet referred to as the “Third World.” I did not forget the member of the Bundestag in the Volkswagen. A similar anger and disquiet can be found in my first films from the early 60s (which were not “political”), especially in the films Mülheim (Ruhr), Ödenwaldstetten (both 1964) and Von Griechenland (1965).

Peter Nestler approaches his films without preformulated assertions; reality is not intentionally manipulated – something that should be completely obvious but that, unfortunately, isn’t. It is easier to explain what his films are by starting from what they renounce. Why, what is he doing? Obviously the simplest thing in the world, and at the same time the most difficult. He aims his camera on houses, streets, on people. He lets individuals speak, makes choices without comment; that’s how with scattered pieces he puts together the setting of an industrial city, a changing landscape, a circle of workers. And in a coherent manner, in front of our eyes, a world is formed anew; we see the world in a new coherence. Never does Peter Nestler confine himself behind the camera without participating. These films are anything but cold; his gaze only becomes more precise and inexorable because the only thing that interests him is to find those places where the material is most vulnerable; where it can reveal its secret. Because the author doesn’t allow himself any direct interference, what we see behind these shots isn’t resignation, as you might at first glance think, but an accusation that draws its pathos precisely from the fact that it is unformulated. Thus, the very beauty and poetry of these films have nothing to do with the formal beauty of poetic images: They are what stand out when reality is put into the light. Like every work of art, the films of Peter Nestler are demanding toward the world, so that it may change.

My funding was axed, and I moved to Sweden. The killing continued for decades in Vietnam, now with the latest technology and in our name, the name of the “free world.” The student revolts of 1968 in Paris, in Berlin, and elsewhere were a liberation.

Introduction to Nestler Jean-Marie Straub 1968/1972. First published in German, as an untitled coda to “Gespräch mit Danièle Huillet und Jean-Marie Straub,” interview by Helmut Färber, in Filmkritik, n° 142, October 1968. Subsequently published in Italian, with the additional final paragraph, as “Introduzione a Nestler,” trans. Danièlle Huillet, Filmcritica, n° 227, September 1972. Translated by Sally Shafto. Published in Writings. Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, edited by Sally Shafto, Sequence Press, 2016.

I think more and more that Nestler has been the most important filmmaker in Germany since the war – aside from older people who were able to shoot here, such as Fritz Lang, and Rossellini (Fear). Simply because – probably as the only one here – he only recorded what he recorded and did not try to titillate people. That has also been his misfortune. When I told (Theo) Hinz that Nestler did not appear in the catalogue of the Constantin Exhibition (Junger Deutscher Film – Young German Cinema), he said: “We only want people who make cinema appetizing.” People who simply record – or film, paint, draw – what they see without previously trying to impose a form and thus make reality disappear are getting more and more rare in the field of film. Such people are like Cézanne, who did nothing but paint apples and to whom people would say, “Those aren’t apples you are painting.” This is happening because film is becoming more and more something it should never be, or which it should incidentally be permitted not to be, namely a commodity. That one can sell films is another matter, but the fact that they increasingly become commodities makes it necessary to explode the structures to which films are subjected.

(From Greece) . It’s a very important film, aesthetically terroristic, and for me, ever more important. Then people said Nestler has a political tic, but that he had no such tic has been shown in the meantime by the events in Greece. It was ingenious not to record the slogans of the crowds with direct sound. When I say that, it means something, since I am practically an apostle of direct sound. The intuitive genius lay in the fact that the slogans are only spoken in the commentary, by him. He repeated what the people were saying and shouting. Now Nestler has made a feature-length film for Swedish television. It is called Im Rurhrgebiet (In The Ruhr Valley). What Brecht said could also apply that that film: “To dig out the truth from the rubble of the self-evident, to make a marked link between the specific and the general, to capture the particular within a general process, that is the art of the realists.” Nestler is a friend. When we met, he had already shot three films; they were the only German films in the postwar period. Today, after his last films, he remains the only German filmmaker. If we compare all contemporary films with his, we can say what Brecht used to say about German theater in the 1920s: “You may have thought this amounted to something, but let me tell you, it’s a sheer scandal; what you see before you proves your absolute bankruptcy; it’s your own stupidity, your mental laziness and your degeneracy that are being publicly exposed.”

For his part, Nestler has made the most poetic of films. That began with Am Siel – that was even before MachorkaMuff and before (Rudolf ) Thome came along with his very beautiful Die Versöhnung, which I still consider one of the most important steps in young German cinema. As Am Siel was being considered by the selection committee in Mannheim, people said, “That can’t be; a dike sluice can’t speak.” Then came Aufsätze, and they said, “That can’t be; one can’t have children speaking this way.” And the came Mülheim (Ruhr), and almost nothing more was said, except for what was written in Filmkritik. Mülheim was for me, even if Nestler had at that time not yet seen something by Mizoguchi, a “Mizoguchian” film. I mean not the Mizoguchi of Sansho the Bailiff for example, which is one of the most powerful films there is, and perhaps the only Marxist one, and not, as people wrote, a film about the God of mercy – it is that, too, but also a film about the opposite. Mülheim was rejected because it shows children who are condemned by the society we live in even before they grow up. Then Nestler made two feature-length films, Ödenwaldstetten and A Working Men’s Club in Sheffield – which didn’t get shown on television. And then came Von Griechenland

The films you made for children have a simplicity that is consistent. They don’t have that patronizing quality that is common to this type of film. Is this something you think about? Do you think you couldn’t show your other films to children? I believe I could. But there are certain things that require knowledge and a life experience that children just haven’t got yet. But the language is the same. That simplicity, to me, is something that I am always looking for. To use the camera only as a means, as a mediator. And not using the camera to create something new. To simply use the camera to define, to limit, or to bring out, uncover. You say that you don’t wish to create anything new, that you wish to use the camera as a sort of window. Did I get it right? Can you tell me what you mean by “simplicity”?

A Feeling of Truth Peter Nestler interviewed by Christoph Hübner.

To penetrate into the essence of something. It’s mostly a desire not to distort or to remould anything, something that’s done often in filmmaking. Even in a feature film by, say, Jean Renoir one might get the feeling that the truth is being uncovered. Sometimes you manage to do that. And when people watch the film you notice it passes on to them. And that’s as far as you can get, I think, in filmmaking.

Excerpts taken from “Peter Nestler: Ein Gefühl von Wahrheit,” Dokumentarisch arbeiten. Texte zum Dokumentarfilm I, edited by Gabriele Voss, Vorwerk 8, 1996. Translated by Ricardo Cabo Matos and Stoffel Debuysere.

I was born in Freiburg in the Black Forest in 1937. Moved to Berlin via Lahr/Baden, then on to Bayern when the Second World War started, because my parents rightly feared that Berlin would be bombed. Went to primary school in Grainau, close to the border with Austria. My parents divorced after the war. Two children stayed with my mother, my older sister and me went on to live with my father. Went to boarding school, because it wasn’t easy to raise children at home back then. Hitchhiked my way through France and Italy when I was fifteen, left home after business school. Worked in a factory. Fared the seas. Then went back to Lahr to work in the family business of my grandfather, but gave up because it was too demoralizing to work in acquisitions. Went to study arts in München and screen printing in Stuttgart in the workshop of Willi Baumeister, which was industrialized right after his death. Back to München, where I worked as an extra in films in order to raise money to make my own. Taking on roles in cinema and television has allowed me to make my first films, short documentaries, in the beginning of the 1960s. By 1965, it became increasingly difficult to find money for my proper projects and I emigrated to Sweden, which is my mother’s country of origin. Married in Hungary in 1966. Started a family in Sweden. Worked in forests and factories, until I was able to find a footing in Swedish television. Worked on programs for children, some for myself, others for the documentary film department. Then I was appointed to the job of buying films from abroad. In the last years I haven’t made any more documentaries for Swedish television, but I was able to produce film independently, outside working hours. Many of them were financed in Germany. I have four children who have grown up in Sweden.

So you think, “the world exists, I record it, I don’t add anything and still create an image of it.” Yes, I do an incredible thing: framing and building up an image. One that didn’t exist before. And that’s doing so much… If I went outside the frame and did more, I’d lose the filmed object. The joy of filmmaking is this building up and editing of frames. To discover what’s happening, what is going on, and becoming visible, and, in the case of documentary film, being there on the right moment. You’re often too late, the moment is gone, a mere memory. That’s an extra fascination. It used to drive me crazy! The sadness of having missed it. But now I keep it to myself. I’ve grown older. Many people consider: how do I begin a film? You just do it. I have done my research and I have a notion of how to construct the film. But I am open to changing everything when I am working. Maybe it cannot be otherwise in documentary film. Otherwise, removing mistakes can be too much of a job. You don’t have any embellishments in your work, no decoration. Because things are already so decorated.

Is documentary film your genre, or is this kind of determination not for you?

What does it mean to you when things have a “weight” in a film?

I don’t like making these distinctions. Because the things I look for in a documentary can also be found in fiction films. So these terms have become blurred. All they are, are crutches.

Experiencing a film as painful or as a sort of happiness. Being moved by what you see. I don’t mean this emotion that you sometimes hate yourself for, when you’re moved by a scene which you know is sentimental. I mean a deeper feeling of being affected, feeling that your life is implicated, feeling connected to what happens in the film.

I think documentary cinema can teach one a certain kind of restraint, an awareness of gestures other persons make. In fiction gestures are determined. It’s a different way of working.

I recall that you quoted Robert Bresson in an earlier text of yours: “Film is 80 % sound.” Is that something you still value?

You can also let them unfold. There are different approaches. In the result, in what lies beyond the story, the photography and the editing, fiction films are not that different from documentaries, when you keep looking for “moments of truth”.

In many of my film the omission or an abrupt cut of the original sound has to do with clarifying, thinking, giving an impulse. By omitting sound one can also indicate something. Something is set in motion in people’s minds. In Von Griechenland (From Greece) we listen to the reading of a report about a war crime committed against the people of small village. There is also an account of a woman who tells us about her experiences and memories of that village. About the escape towards the hills, about starvations and thirst, about the lack of containers to drink, how she had to drink from her own shoe. There are two layers to it. We listen to what she is saying and we understand from the report, which concerns the totality, how monstrous the process was. In my films there is also a resistance, a restraint to expose people. To expose their agitation with my camera. Nonetheless it was very important for me to talk about it. Why does one ultimately deal with certain things? Why is one fascinated by certain historic events? Why do they get such a hold on me?

Moments of truth? That what lies inside the images. It can be parts of the landscape or, as you said, gestures that appear at the right moment. Cooperating… These things can evoke a sense of truth that one feels when everything is in the right place. It’s very hard to define. And there are only few who are able to attain it. I find it much more in the film from the 1920s than in today’s films, for all their technical display. I just saw Toni by Renoir again. There’s so much in it! So much that is known to us, who’ve only worked on documentaries. And it tells a really exciting story. It’s actually hard to define. Something remains hidden. You can’t precisely say why it works at all with Renoir.

Why?

Perhaps it’s part of the truth that some things stay hidden.

Because the historical events are so close to me. When I study them, read about them, find material - especially when I get a hold of actual documents. Maybe I feel a stronger connection to what happened 500 years ago than most people. Maybe it was triggered in my childhood. I had a grandfather who went on expeditions in South America and Africa at the turn of the century. The objects he collected, some of them stored at home in a huge building, others in museums, have made a strong impression on me. Then after the war there was the remembering, having to remember the crimes committed by the Nazis. And this sense of “being involved.” You’re born into it. Shortly before the Americans came, people were walking past our house in a sort of death march. Women from concentration camps who were dispersed. There were no more guards with them, but there was still a death penalty for taking them into the house. My mother hid them in our cellar until the end of the war. For me, that’s definitely one of the reasons why the theme keeps cropping up, which has become part of actual history. But to me it’s still very much alive. Sometimes it gets too much for me too, to have so much darkness in my films. Sometimes I flee from it. But

Certainly. It also has to do with the fact that one makes things from the “back” and not, as one might say, from the guts. The back also contains the “backbone”. Yes, and this is most essential in filmmaking. But you can’t really define it in a conversation on cinema: when does a film have weight? When does it work? When does it become important to a viewer, when to the filmmaker? Many other things might be considered important. But the actual “weight” of a film can’t really be grasped. It occurs. And you feel it while you’re filming: “Now it’s right!” And you can see it in other films too. Working with film requires a great openness. And it makes watching and judging films a very difficult affair. Thus it may happen that certain filmmakers are totally forgotten and later rediscovered again. You ask yourself: how it was possible that their greatness wasn’t recognized? I’m thinking of directors that were rediscovered by the French. Like Fritz Lang, for example, who was merely laughed at here during the fifties!

then I bump into it again, like in Die Nordkalotte (199091). Because we, Germans, have ravished the whole of Europe. In painting as well, I’m affected by the liveliness of images which are often hundreds of years old. There are 2000-year-old images that have such a liveliness that the sense of time completely slips away. That’s why there are so many painting and drawings in my films and, looking back, in everything I did.

Do you prefer to work alone or with a small team? With a small team. I was very happy to work with Reinhald Schnell, Zsóka Nestler, Kurt Ulrich for the first films. Or with Dirk Alvermann. I was very enthusiastic about the people working for television. Manfred Schmidt and Jacques Uwe Otto showed much enthusiasm and were very committed to this line of work despite what they usually do for television, where they are from one day to another assigned to any job whatsoever that they have to adapt to. Here they had more time. That was beautiful to see.

Could you describe the development you went through in your films, when you think back of the first ones? I’ve travelled a winding road and have now actually arrived back at my first films again. The formats have changed; I now also have the possibility to make longer films. It has always been difficult to raise money for the sort of films I make, which have a certain barrenness, a simplicity and a lack of attractiveness in terms of entertainment. The kind of films that demand too much involvement to meet the entertainment criteria. My work used to be met with political reservations and resistance. As soon as the mass of documentary films dealing with controversial subjects no longer seem to matter, it was the barrenness that was lambasted. And I developed a certain understanding for editors saying, “No, not Nestler,” because the films aren’t easily consumable. You have grapple with them, so people scoff them off and zap to another channel. Viewing habits have changed too. It has become so easy to flee from things which we, as spectators, were willing to explore and discuss in the 1960s.

Do you have a script or a concept when you start filming? I rather have it in my head. I don’t write much. I keep the things I have seen in mind and put down some notes. I don’t think it works to have a script for a documentary film. In the film Über Die Geschichte des Papiers (About the History of Paper, 1972-73), the image and the commentary seem to be very close to one another. One feels that this form must have been thought through in advance. Or at least the text. Do you have a text that you write beforehand? No, the text is written afterwards. It is regulated by the images. But I know more or less what should go in the text. It’s fun to work with these determined durations, down to the seconds that may be become too dense for many people. It’s also amusing to shorten what is being said. To find a quintessential form. To escape from the description of working processes and bring in social and historical references. And this in a way that remains in suspension while viewing and listening.

I believe these are periodic waves. The need for simplicity will become stronger again. I don’t think it goes only in one direction. There is always also the contrary. This is something we can count on in our work. When you say you’re returning to your older films, what is it you’re returning to? To poetry, to indirectness?

Conversation with Zsóka Nestler By Martin Grennberger & Stefan Ramstedt

If I understand correctly, it’s not just a question of dramaturgy or pure form, but of diverting the content into another direction?

Originally published in Magasinet Walden, 1/2 double issue, spring 2016. Translated by Britt Hatzius.

Naturally, it has to do with content and rhythm. With both. It started with the film Ödenwaldstetten. That is where I consciously worked in this way for the first time - with the texts of the old men, which I had noted down. They are read by the speaker, but they are all authentic. The old man feeding the rabbits at the beginning of the film tells us how he found himself in a bomb crater during the First World War. That is where he got the pain he feels in his bones. But maybe those pains are also caused by working too much. The old man says things about the village, about life, about the relations between people, which from a moment to another escape the descriptive and come to designate the totality. There is this condensed way of telling that is common to many dialects. I discovered that for the first time in a sociological research about the Swabian Jura accent. People would reply in dialect and the words were quoted as they were spoken. There are abbreviations that go to the heart of things and that has become a model for me. Bertolt Brecht has also pursued this way of working with the dialect of Augsburg. Or maybe not so much with the dialect, but in a way of condensing, which has to do with popular language. The reproach that we don’t invent everything by ourselves isn’t actually a reproach. It is a way of working which can only be beneficiary. We just need to know how to transpose it. I have copied the method from him and from many others...

As there is little information about you, may we ask you to tell us briefly about your background? I was born towards the end of the Second World War in the center of Budapest in Hungary. My parents belonged to the middle class; in his youth, my father trained as an acrobat and performed as such for several years at various different cabarets in Budapest and Italy. There were also two filmmakers in the family, one cousin (Mihály Szemes) on my father’s side and his wife (Marianne Szemes) – through whom I met Peter. Both were involved in social issues and made several prize-winning films. Through these family contacts I developed an interest in film early on. After high school I tried to study literature at university but was not accepted, most likely because my parents were not party members. Instead I took individual courses in film and theatre studies. I once also tried to get into the program for theatre directing at the film school, but to no avail. So I was forced to look for work. I got a job at the same company my parents worked at, a textile factory. In order to make progress, and to practice and further develop my language skills, I later applied to the Hungarian airline company Malev, and started working there as ground stewardess at the Budapest airport in 1964. I felt comfortable in this international environment and stayed there until 1967, when I – having met Peter - moved to Sweden. You mentioned that you had the intention of becoming a theatre director. What thoughts and ideas did you have about theatre and cinema at the time?

“In suspension”? Yes, that which doesn’t become binding, not forgotten once the following scene arrives. Something that one tries to link to the passing of time and to contemporary situations.

Yes. And to the confidence in the weight of the filmed things themselves. But it has been a winding trajectory. I have always had a connection with the first films. A lot was also due to the working conditions, the preparation in the library and then the process of filming in relatively short periods.

There were two references that informed my thoughts regarding cinema and theatre at that time. I grew up in a block of flats, which for many years had a cinema that showed several films per week. Because both cinema and theatre were heavily subsidized in socialist Hungary, culture was economically easily accessible to the general public. There were also two larger cinemas in the same neighborhood. At that time, cinema for me was magic. An unknown world opened itself up to me that was not accessible within ordinary circumstances. The same was true for theatre. Even then, Budapest was a cultural capital with a large selection of theatre programs, and works by Bertolt Brecht and Peter Weiss were widely known. I too was a diligent theatergoer.

You call that “not binding”? Yes, binding like friendliness or politeness. To not bind in the form. To obstruct, to build up a hurdle that people have to deal with. One has to jump over it, one has to take pay attention. This is something that Brecht often does in his poems. He interrupts them and changes the rhythm. To work like this gives a lot of pleasure.

You mentioned that sometimes you have enough of what you called the “darkness” in your films. It strikes me though that you also often deal with things which cause pleasure. One takes pleasure, for example, in seeing the different layers of paper, and yet the films take on a certain weight. It can also be a pleasure to hit the right spot of dark parts while working. But I make films on topics that touch me the most, and I am not done with the dark things in my life and in the times I live in. I can’t turn them off.

The second reference was, as I already mentioned, cinema’s closeness to the family. My cousin made above all fiction films, whereas his wife was a screenwriter and made documentary films. Both were socially very engaged, something that also shaped their work. The films of Marianne Szemes depicted current social concerns, and reached their height - I believe – in her film Zarandokut 65 (1965), when she described part of her own family history, following her father’s traces back to Mauthausen, where he was killed during the persecution of the Jews.

Throughout all these years I was also ‘the eye of the audience’, and had comments, questions and observations based on experiences and knowledge of my various different interests. During my training in psychotherapy for example, I recommended a crucial book to Peter by one of my teachers: Ludvig Igras Den tunna hinnan mellan omsorg och grymhet (2001), which Peter also translated into German, and used in his film Die Verwandlung des guten Nachbarn (The Metamorphosis of the Good Neighbour, 2002).

Your first collaboration with Peter was the film In Budapest (1969), which was followed by your collaborative working throughout most of the 1970s. How would you describe your part in this process? Right from the beginning, my main task was the recording of (synchronized) sound, as well as the administration of the recordings. As we were both mostly present during the filming, we also worked together on logistical and organizational aspects and all practical details. As several films were shot in Hungary I also had another important role: because of my roots there, my local knowledge and language skills, I was able to introduce Peter to Hungarian culture and literature, and act as a link between him and those participating in front of the camera. With openness, curiosity, modesty and respect, we were able to create a trusting and reliable atmosphere, which is a necessary requirement for all film work. During the filming of Mit Der Musik Gross Werden (Growing up with Music, 2003) I was not responsible for the sound recording, but worked instead on establishing a good communication between the film team and the participating Roma.

We had no major disputes regarding the structure of image and sound. I did however make suggestions during the edit that Peter either went along with or not. The particular tone of the films and the importance of the rhythm I never saw as a challenge or difficulty. Quite simply because I completely agreed with Peter in this point, and relied on his intuition regarding the sound. The main responsibility for the combination of image and sound was his, I just had to learn to understand how he wanted it, and fairly soon this was clear to me. You are a qualified psychotherapist. Was this something you were able to apply to the work on the films you and Peter made? Yes, I am an authorized psychotherapist, but I trained long after my involvement with Peter’s films. This knowledge and experience therefore had no relevance to my work with film at the time. Sveriges television (Swedish Television) had employed me as a freelancer, and once I started working only on Peter’s projects, my work-related situation eventually became untenable. This is why in 1975 I took on a position at the same airline company I had previously worked for in Budapest. The clients in Stockholm were for the most part Hungarians who had emigrated to Sweden for different reasons (some due to the persecution of the Jews during World War Two, others came because of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956). Being in contact with them got me interested in immigration issues and the psychosocial context that these migrants found themselves in.

What ideas and predispositions did you have regarding cinema’s form and aesthetics? What would you say is the most important role of documentary film? The question of aesthetics in cinema assumes a certain amount of knowledge about film theory, which I did not have when I started working with Peter. I approached my role with the perspective of an outsider, not that of the creator, but that of the observer. Based on the experience I have gained through this work in film, I believe that the most important role of documentary film is to share personally acquired knowledge that one considers important and wants to continue developing. One wants to document, preserve, touch, convey, and use this unique opportunity of being in the right place at the right time.

Aufsätzte was the first film I saw by Peter. This film is a fine-tuned and respectful documentation of the everyday school life of children living in a small village in the Alps. What touched me most was that the children are able to speak for themselves, that the emphasis is on their own perspectives. A similar principle – that of keeping to the child’s perspective, of trying to understand them, to convey them – was also the foundation for how I worked with traumatized children. Even though I was not able to actively contribute to Peter’s productions after 1978, I did not distance myself from his artistic work, but on the contrary became closer to it. We are both concerned with an interpretation of reality, each in our own way, and have always supported and enriched one another’s work.

In Peter’s films from the early 60s, children had an important role in works such as Aufsätze (Compositions, 1963) and A Working Men’s Club in Sheffield (1965). Based on your experiences and knowledge about working with children and young adults, could you say something about the role of children in yours and Peter’s films?

“It is of little importance whether privilege has been given to documentary or fiction, in a grand or a small film: one is a creator from the moment one arrives at this totalization of all dimensions of the real, of which art is the extension. The thing is that no-one has seen Peter Nestler’s films, except for a few programmers and distributors who did not want them, not for their cinema spaces nor for their festivals. Why? Because in Am Siel, it is the sluice itself which narrates its life - and that shouldn’t be done; because the pupils in Aufsätze shouldn’t be shown so ill-dressed; because their writings should have been read by professionals, etc. These are, in any case, insignificant films. The critics, they did not see them at all. And if you risk a ‘why?’ They reply by way of another: why should they take the trouble to see films that are refused because of their insignificance and made by somebody who is a nobody?”

I believe that every creative work is about finding a form of expression for something that lies very deep inside the maker. This might derive from thoughts, experiences, emotions and commitments that impose themselves and need to be brought to the surface; wanting to impart and make them visible to others. Peter and I were both born during the darkest chapter of European history. We bear many exceptional experiences, with deep scars left by these particular circumstances, which later gave the possibility of identification. War, social unrest and war-like conditions deny children the necessary requirements for their optimal development. Children are completely at the mercy of their circumstances, of the adult’s well-meaning decisions and capacity/incapacity to help and protect them. They are always subservient to adults. Rarely can children make their voices heard. Whether children are traumatized by wartime experiences or by separation from their families (as for example orphaned children), they are trying to cope with psychological distress. The role of children in these films I would say is twofold: on the one hand there is an attempt to make their exposedness, vulnerability and sensitivity visible, as in for example Die Folgen der Unterdrückung (The Consequences of Oppression, 1982), but on the other hand it’s about conveying their inner strength, their belief in the future and the hope for development, as in Growing up with music.

- Michel Delahaye, Cahiers du Cinéma 163, February 1965.

In 1984 I began my studies at the University of Stockholm in a newly formed program, ‘cross-cultural relations, immigration’. This study led me into new territories, such as my work with tortured refugees, as educational consultant at a school with a lot of immigrant children, and with the hosting of refugees at my local community’s Social Services Agency. During this time I started a parttime basic training in psychotherapy, which I completed in 2002. During my later working life I became board member of a children’s home. I also opened a surgery for therapeutic treatment in Uppsala.

Peter’s films (including those you made together) always have a very particular tone that attaches great importance to rhythm. Did you and Peter always agree on how the image and sound should be structured, and was this a challenge or did it cause you difficulties when recording sound on site?

Peter Nestler Filmography

DIE DONAU RAUF / UPPFÖR DONAU / Up the Danube (1969, 28’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

AM SIEL / By the Dike Sluice (1962, 13’, 35mm, b/w) In collaboration with Kurt Ulrich. Produced by Peter Nestler, Munich.

WIE BAUT MAN EINE ORGEL? / HUR BYGGER MAN EN ORGEL? / How to Build an Organ? (1969, 25’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

AUFSÄTZE / Compositions (1963, 10’, 35mm, b/w) In collaboration with Kurt Ulrich and Marianne Beutler. Produced by Peter Nestler, Munich. MÜLHEIM (RUHR) (1964, 14’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Reinald Schnell. Produced by Peter Nestler, Munich.

WARUM IST KRIEG? / VARFÖR ÄR DET KRIG? / Why is There War? (1969-70, 18’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

ÖDENWALDSTETTEN (1964, 36’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Kurt Ulrich. Produced by Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart.

WIE MACHT MAN GLAS? (HANDWERKLICH) / HUR GÖR MAN GLAS? (HANTVERKSMÄSSIGT) / How to make glass (Manually) (1970, 24’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

EIN ARBEITERCLUB IN SHEFFIELD / A Working Men’s Club in Sheffield (1965, 41’, 16mm, b/w) Produced by Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart.

WIE MACHT MAN GLAS? (MASCHINELL) / HUR GÖR MAN GLAS (MASKINELLT) / How to Make Glass (Mechanically) (1970, 24’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

VON GRIECHENLAND / From Greece (1965, 28’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Reinald Schnell. Produced by Peter Nestler, Munich. RHEINSTROM / Rhine River (1965, 13’, 35mm, b/w) In collaboration with Reinald Schnell. Produced by Peter Nestler, Munich.

ZIGEUNER SEIN / ATT VARA ZIGENARE / Being Gypsy (1970, 47’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

IM RUHRGEBIET / I RUHROMRÅDET / In the Ruhr Region (1967, 34’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler and Reinald Schnell. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

DÜRFEN SIE WIEDERKOMMEN? Über neofaschistische Tendenzen in Westdeutschland / FÅR DE KOMMA IGEN? Om nyfascistiska tendenser i Västtyskland / Are They Allowed to Return? About Neofascist Tendencies in West Germany (1971, 47’, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. Never broadcast.

SIGHTSEEING (1968, 10’, 16mm, colour) Text: Peter Weiss. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. Never broadcast. GESELLSCHAFTLICHES VERBRECHEN / SAMHÄLLELIG FÖRBRYTELSE / Crime Against Humanity (1968, 7’, video, b/w) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. Never broadcast.

ÜBER DAS AUFKOMMEN DES BUCHDRUCKS / OM BOKTRYCKETS UPPKOMST / About the Advent of Letterpress Printing (1971, 24’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

GRIECHEN IN SCHWEDEN / GREKER I SVERIGE / Greeks in Sweden (1968, 28’, 16mm, b/w) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. Never broadcast.

BUCHDRUCK OFFSET / BOKTRYCK OFFSET / Letterpress and Offset Printing (1971, 24’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

IN BUDAPEST / I BUDAPEST (1969, 11’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. GLUNT (1969, 10’, 16mm, colour) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. Never broadcast.

BILDER VON VIETNAM / BILDER FRÅN VIETNAM / Images of Vietnam (1972, 24’, 16mm, b/w)

In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

/ BERGSHANTERING / JÄRNHANTERING, DEL III / Mining / Ironworks, Part III (1974-75, 29’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

FOS-SUR-MER (1972, 24’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

PINETS PUPPEN / PINETS DOCKOR / Pinet’s Puppets (1976, 15’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

ÜBER DIE GESCHICHTE DES PAPIERS, TEIL I / OM PAPPERETS HISTORIA, DEL I / About the History of Paper, Part I (1972-73, 24’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

AUSLÄNDER. TEIL I. SCHIFFE UND KANONEN / UTLÄNNINGAR. DEL I. BÅTAR OCH KANONER / Foreigners. Part I. Ships and guns (1976-77, 44’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

ÜBER DIE GESCHICHTE DES PAPIERS, TEIL II / OM PAPPERETS HISTORIA, DEL II / About the History of Paper, Part II (1972-73, 24’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

AUSLÄNDER. TEIL II. ZIGEUNER / UTLÄNNINGAR. DEL II. LE ROM / Foreigners. Part II. Romani (1977-78, 29’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

SPANIEN! / Spain! (1973, 43’, 16mm, b/w.) In collaboration with Taisto Jalamo. Produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Köln. EINE SCHULE IN UNGARN / EN SKOLA I UNGERN / A School in Hungary (1973, 24’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

AUSLÄNDER. TEIL III. IRANER / UTLÄNNINGAR. DEL III. IRANIER / Foreigners. Part III. Iranians (1977/78, 29 ‘, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT2.

CHILEFILM / LÖRDAGS – CHILE / Chile film (1974, 23’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. Never broadcast.

AUSLÄNDER. TEIL IV. IRANER / UTLÄNNINGAR. DEL IV. IRANIER / Foreigners. Part IV. Iranians (1977/78, 29’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

STOFF, TEIL I / TYG, DEL I / Fabric, Part I (1974, 29’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

ETWAS ÜBER DIE INDIANER DER USA / NÅGOT OM USAS INDIANER / Something about the Indians in the USA (1978, 13’, 16mm, colour) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

STOFF, TEIL II / TYG, DEL II / Fabric, Part II (1974, 28’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

IST DER FRIEDEN VERFASSUNGSFEINDLICH? / ÄR FREDEN FÖRFATTNINGSFIENTLIG? / Is Peace Anti-Constitutional? (1981, 59’, film and video, colour) In collaboration with Kristian Romare. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

ERZBERGBAU / EISENHERSTELLUNG, TEIL I / BERGSHANTERING / JÄRNHANTERING, DEL I / Mining / Ironworks, Part I (1974-75, 28’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

MEIN LAND / MITT LAND / MI PAIS / My Country (1981, 6’, 16mm, colour) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

ERZBERGBAU / EISENHERSTELLUNG, TEIL II / BERGSHANTERING / JÄRNHANTERING, DEL II / Mining / Ironworks, Part II (1974-75, 30’, 16mm, b/w) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

HIROSHIMA (1981, 4’, 16mm, colour) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT. RUPERTO MENDOZA (1982, 40’, 16mm, colour) Produced by Peter Nestler, Stockholm.

ERZBERGBAU / EISENHERSTELLUNG, TEIL III

VICTOR JARAS KINDER / VICTOR JARAS BARN / Victor Jara’s Children (1982, 23’ (part I); 19’ (part II), 16mm, colour). Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

DIE NORDKALOTTE / The North Calotte (1990-91, 90’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Ingrid Gimmon. Produced by SüdWestFunk.

ES IST KRIEG IN MITTELAMERIKA / DET ÄR KRIG I CENTRALAMERIKA / There is War in Central America (1982, 29’, video, colour) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

ZEIT / Time (1992, 43’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by SüdWestFunk, for the series ‘Menschen und Strassen’.

DIE FOLGEN DER UNTERDRÜCKUNG / HUR FÖRTRYCKET SLÅR / The Consequences of Oppression (1982, 40’, 16mm, colour) In collaboration with Sergio Bustamante. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

LÓFOTR (1994, 44’, 16mm, colour) Produced by SüdWestFunk, for the series ‘Inseln’ (‘Islands’). DIE HASEN FANGEN UND BRATEN DEN JÄGER / HARARNA FÅNGAR OCH STEKER JÄGAREN / The Hares Catch and Roast the Hunter (1994, 7’, 35mm, b/w) Produced by Peter Nestler.

ICH WILL KEINE TRAURIGEN GESICHTER SEHEN / JAG VILL INTE SE SORGSNA ANSIKTEN / I Don’t Want to See Sorrowful Faces (1982-83, 30’, 16mm to video, colour) In collaboration with Sergio Bustamante. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

PACHAMAMA - UNSERE ERDE / PACHAMAMA NUESTRA TIERRA / Pachamama - Our Land (1995, 90’, 16mm, colour) Produced by Strandfilm, Frankfurt am Main, in co-production with Hessischer Rundfunk and SüdWestFunk; financial support by Hessische Filmförderung.

DAS FRIEDENSHAUS MITTEN IM PULVERFASS / FREDSHUSET MITT I KRUTDURKEN / The House of Peace on the Powder Keg (1983, 20‘, 16mm to video, colour) In collaboration with Rainer Komers. Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

DIE RÖMERSTRASSE IM AOSTATAL / The Roman Street in the Aosta Valley (1998-99, 89’, 16mm, colour) Production: SWR, for the series ‘Menschen und Strassen’, in co-production with RAI 3, Aosta.

GEFÄHRLICHES WISSEN / FARLIG KUNSKAP / Dangerous Knowledge (1983/84, 30’ 16mm, colour) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

FLUCHT / Escape (2000, 87’, DV, colour) Produced by Strandfilm, Frankfurt am Main, in coproduction with ZDF | 3sat and WDR | 3sat.

DAS WARTEN / VÄNTAN / The Waiting (1985, 6’, 16mm, b/w) Produced by Sveriges Radio | SVT.

DIE VERWANDLUNG DES GUTEN NACHBARN / The Metamorphosis of the Good Neighbour (2002, 84’, DV [4:3], colour) Produced by Kintopp HB for ZDF | 3sat.

DIE JUDENGASSE / The Jewish Lane (1988, 44’, 16mm, colour) Produced by SüdWestFunk, for the series ‘Menschen und Strassen’.

MIT DER MUSIK GROSS WERDEN / Growing up with Music (2003, 30’, DV, colour) In cooperation with Zsóka Nestler. Produced by Kintopp HB for ZDF | 3sat.

ZUR GESCHICHTE DER JUDEN IN FRANKFURT / About the History of the Jews in Frankfurt (1988, 25’, 16mm, colour) Produced by EEC, Frankfurt am Main, Commissioned by the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt.

VERTEIDIGUNG DER ZEIT / Defense of Time (2007, 25’, DV, colour and b/w) Produced by Strandfilm, ZDF | 3sat.

DAS BILD DER JUDEN IN DER CHRISTLICHEN MALEREI UND IM GEISTLICHEN DRAMA / The Picture of the Jews in Christian Painting and Religious Drama (1988, 23’, video, colour) In collaboration with Gertrud Koch. Produced by EEC, Frankfurt am Main, Commissioned by the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt.

TOD UND TEUFEL / Death and Devil (2009, 55’, HDCAM SR & DigiBeta, colour and b/w) Produced by Strandfilm, Kintopp HB, ZDF | 3sat. DIE HOHLMENSCHEN / Hollow Men (2015, 5’, HDCAM SR) Produced by Kintopp HB for the Goethe-Institut in Tel Aviv.