Quarterly 4 · 2006 - German Cinema

Losers and Winners
In the Ruhr Area, one of Germany’s key industrial regions,
the famous “heartbeat of steel” has gone silent. A few
years after the hypermodern coke plant at Kaiserstuhl,
built at a cost of 650 million Euros, was shut down, 400
Chinese workers start breaking it down into manageable
parts to ship them back to their homeland: disassembly in
the West – reassembly in the Far East. Where up to 800
people used to work, the last 30 German employees are
now supervising the so-called Shutdown Department.
Communication between the two groups is difficult.
Highly motivated people from a low-wage country come
face-to-face with financially better-off workers in an industrialized
nation who are now suddenly bereft of future
prospects. Filmmakers Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken
watched as the gigantic industrial site was dismantled,
documenting the stories that accompanied its disappearance.
Two worlds collide. Who is ultimately the winner and who
the loser when a whole region of Germany experiences
first-hand the impact of globalization, while in the Middle
Empire new visions come and go with each passing day?
Genre Environmental/Ecology, Society Category Documentary
Cinema Year of Production 2006 Directors Ulrike Franke,
Michael Loeken Screenplay Ulrike Franke, Michael Loeken
Directors of Photography Michael Loeken, Ruediger Spott
Editor Guido Krajewski Music by Maciej Sledziecki Producers
Michael Loeken, Ulrike Franke Production Company filmproduktion
loekenfranke/Cologne, in co-production with WDR-
ARTE/Cologne, Goethe-Institut/Munich Length 96 min, 2,736 m
Format DV Blow-up 35 mm, color, 1:1.85 Original Version
German/Chinese Subtitled Version English Sound
Technology Dolby SR Festival Screenings Leipzig 2006,
Duisburg 2006, Luenen 2006 With backing from Filmstiftung
NRW German Distributor filmproduktion loekenfranke/
Cologne
Ulrike Franke was born in 1970 in Dortmund and studied
Theater, Film & Television Studies in Cologne. She then worked on
several television and film productions as well as independent work
in scriptwriting and documentaries. Since 1996, she has been active
as a screenplay writer, director and producer.
Michael Loeken was born in 1954 in Neviges and studied
Theater, Film & Television Studies in Cologne. In 1981, he wrote the
screenplay for and directed the documentary Ich hatte schon
begonnen die Freiheit zu vergessen and worked as a
recording supervisor for numerous documentary and feature films.
Their films together include Und vor mir die Sterne (1998),
Herr Schmidt und Herr Friedrich (2001), Soldatenglueck
und Gottes Segen (2001), and Losers and
Winners (2006).
World Sales
german united distributors Programmvertrieb GmbH · Bettina Oebel
Breite Strasse 48-50 · 50667 Cologne/Germany
phone +49-2 21-9 20 69 31 · fax +49-2 21-9 20 69 69
email: bettina.oebel@germanunited.com · www.germanunited.com · www.losers-and-winners.net
german films quarterly new german films
4 · 2006 48
Scene from “Losers and Winners” (photo © filmproduktion loekenfranke)