Elf Jahre alt

Eleven Years Old

A portrait of a fifth-grade class at a rural school in East Germany, shot in January 1966. This is the third film in director Winfried Junge’s long-term documentary series "Die Kinder von Golzow" ("The Children of Golzow", 1961 – 2007) and here he follows the children at school and at play. The eleven-year-olds take to the microphone and speak about their desires, questions and visions of utopia. On TV, they see the horrors of war in Vietnam. After a day trip to the nearby Oder river, which marks the Polish border, they study the Bertolt Brecht poem "Children’s Anthem": "Grace spare not and spare no labour / Passion nor intelligence / That a decent German nation / Flourish as do other lands." ... Images of spring represent change and the end of the ice age. Then the camera pans up high into the sky.

Source: 66. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)