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Thomas Heise

Sonnensystem

Documentaire | | couleur | 100:0 | Allemagne, Argentine | 2010

?Solar System? is a film about disappearance. It is a portrait of daily life in the indigenous community of the Kollas in Tinkunaku in the mountains of northern Argentina. It tells the story of Ramona and Viviano in the valley of Blanquito and at high altitude in Santa Cruz, of the deaf Fortunato and of Louis? family, of Soto the shepherd, and of Cecilia and Bernardo whose tractor turned over, of Guido the child who carves men out of clay, of God, of the carnival which everybody celebrates, and of the flowing of the waters. The film shows a meeting without knowing the language of the other, a story of getting to know and seeing each other without words. Non-verbally, exclusively through images the film approaches the people of a small indigenous Kolla community. We accompany the seasonal tramp of Viviano and Ramona from the valley up to the village of Santa Cruz, 3000 meters above sea level, where they spend the summertime until the autumn rain makes them go back to Rio Blanquito. Living with the Kollas, inbetween the old rites and the irruptive modernity, in the grandiose landscape of Yunga and Quechua, the film narrates the day-to-day disappearence of an indigenous people. Dies irae.

Thomas Heise was born in Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic, in 1955. After school he trained as a printer ? ?in the GDR printer was the profession of choice of social failures?. (Heise in a talk with Erika Richter). After his military service in the East German armed forces he began to work as an assistant director at the DEFA ? Studio for Feature Films in Potsdam Babelsberg in 1975. Parallel to his work at the studio he resumed his studies and completed his secondary education. Between 1978 and 1983 Heise studied at the Academy of Film & Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg (HFF/B). His first film, the documentary ?Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? (?Why a Film About These People?) ? produced entirely with materials bought on the black market ? was banned from public screening. Heise broke off his studies. Since 1983 he has worked as a free-lance writer and director in the areas of theatre, audio drama and documentary. Until the end of the GDR all his documentary efforts were however either blocked by what was ? in official jargon ? called ?operative means? or destroyed or confiscated. He started conducting preliminary research for his later films, such as Eisenzeit (?Iron Age?) or Vaterland (?Fatherland?) around the same time. Heise found an artistic home at the theatre, where he cooperated closely with author and director Heiner Müller. Between 1987 and 1990 Heise acquired his MA at the Berlin Academy of Fine Art. He was a member of the Berlin Ensemble until 1997, where acted as contributing director for a number of productions. Since the beginning of the 1990s Heise?s documentaries have attracted national and international attention. Since 2007 he is teaching as a Professor for Film and Media Art at Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe. Thomas Heise?s earlier films dealt with social phenomena in the GDR and the country?s bureaucratic apparatus. From the late 80s his focus has moved to the changes individuals, families and regional communities have had to undergo in the aftermath of the German reunification. The works of the filmmaker encompass a wide range of contemporary socially relevant topics such as privatisation, the re-organisation of the formerly industrial sphere, unemployment and rightwing radicalism to name but a few. Heise?s documentary works are characterised by his precise and insistent way of looking at things. Rather than exploiting or misrepresenting his characters, he takes the time necessary to build up a relationship with them, but stops short of over-identification. ?Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? (?Why a Film About These People?) the title of his first completed short documentary has also become a guiding principle of his work. Heise?s films show people that have been marginalized by society, yet their lives are the site where historical developments converge ? the East German neo-Nazis out of the Stau (Jammed) films, the spy out of Barluschke, the rebellious East German teenagers out of Eisenzeit or the little village, marked by traces of German history in Vaterland. Heise brings the multiple social, political and historical undercurrents of life in today?s Germany to light.