Pallasseum – Invisible City
The camera slowly glides through wide lines, concrete surrounding the picture on all sides, where is above, where is below? Where are we? The Pallasseum is a gigantic residential complex, a city within a city. And it has become a symbol of a failed housing construction policy: anonymous, 100 percent concrete, planned without taking human needs into account. Nevertheless, here, in the centre center of Berlin, life rages between the high, bare, exposed aggregate concrete walls, even if the people look strangely small by comparison. Director Manuel Inacker explores this place in his documentary that also works as a 3-channel split-screen installation. He goes in search of the people behind the clichés about residents of prefabricated buildings. The camera uses quiet pans to scan the rooms without disturbing those whose lives we’re invited into. "Pallasseum" is an attempt to get closer, an experimental portrait of a place that is judged too quickly.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
Curator, author and film educator
The camera slowly glides through wide lines, concrete surrounding the picture on all sides, where is above, where is below? Where are we? The Pallasseum is a gigantic residential complex, a city within a city. And it has become a symbol of a failed housing construction policy: anonymous, 100 percent concrete, planned without taking human needs into account. Nevertheless, here, in the centre center of Berlin, life rages between the high, bare, exposed aggregate concrete walls, even if the people look strangely small by comparison. Director Manuel Inacker explores this place in his documentary that also works as a 3-channel split-screen installation. He goes in search of the people behind the clichés about residents of prefabricated buildings. The camera uses quiet pans to scan the rooms without disturbing those whose lives we’re invited into. "Pallasseum" is an attempt to get closer, an experimental portrait of a place that is judged too quickly.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
Curator, author and film educator
