The German Chainsaw Massacre - The First Hour of the Reunification 18

The German reunification was a shock. Good as bad. That is for sure. A shock for everyone: The East Germans, the West Germans, Magaret Thatcher and George Bush. Christoph Schlingensief was the first filmmaker to react to the events which took place in 1989 and in 1990. His film depicts the shock in a shocking satirical horror slasher genre. In Schlingensief´s vision, a group of East Germans visit West-Germany in the hope of finding a job. Capitalist West Germany – depicted as a morbidly deranged, cannibalistic, incestuous, perverted, bloodthirsty, flesh-hungry, money-obsessed butcher family – welcomes the emigrants who are seen as cheap meat for a sausage business: The trashy, absurd, bloody chainsaw hunt to slaughter as many East German emigrants as possible begins...

Introduced by Sarah Pogoda

Born in the German “Bergische Land”, Sarah Pogoda went to Berlin to study German Literature and History at the Freie Universität Berlin. In her doctorate thesis she looked at post-war and contemporary German literature and architecture. She joined the University of Sheffield in 2012, where she has been teaching German Language and Literature since. Her research interest lies in contemporary Germany – its literature, theatre and film. “Grown up” in Berlin, she was fortunate to keep track with the work of Christoph Schlingensief at the “Volksbühne Berlin”. “There is no way of having a proper conversation about present-day Germany in Berlin”, Sarah says, “if you do not have an explicit opinion on Schlingensief – may it be pure admiration or thorough disgust”.