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Gegen den Strom - Abgetaucht in Venezuela | © Corso Film / Partisan Filmverleih
© Corso Film / Partisan Filmverleih

Against the tide

  • Abgetaucht (Working title)
All titles (3)
Documentary | 2019 | History, Politics, Society | Germany

Brief synopsis

Thomas Walter was part of the Berlin autonomous scene. In 1995 he and two co-perpetrators were accused of having attempted an arson attack on an uninhabited deportation prison in Berlin-Grünau which was prevented by the police. Arrest warrants for the three as members of a leftist terrorist association are still valid today. They went underground for decades. It is only in 2017 that Walter contacts his family in Germany again – from Venezuela, where he has applied for asylum.

Thomas Walter is also a relative of the Berlin filmmaker Sobo Swobodnik, who travels with a camera to the Andes in 2019 to meet the former autonomist in his home surrounded by vegetable gardens. This is where he is working on a music project with the Berlin singer Pablo Charlemoine aka Mal Élevé in an improvised studio in the kitchen. There’s also an extensive interview in which Walter, in Baden dialect, talks remarkably frankly (and self-righteously) about attitudes and events then and now. His former enthusiasm for the Chavist project has long since given way to criticism, but his anarchist ideals are still there. A film that offers a rare insight into a world usually invisible due to the pressure of legal persecution, with a soundtrack featuring the political and activist songs of Walter & Co.

( Dok Leipzig, Silvia Hallensleben)

Crew

ActivityNameComment
ColoristMartin Kuhnert
Director of photographySobo Swobodnik
DirectorSobo Swobodnik
EditorManuel Stettner
ComposerThomas Walter [1]
ComposerMal Élevé
ProducerÜmit Uludağ
ProducerErik Winker
ProducerMartin Roelly
ScreenwriterSobo Swobodnik
Sound re-recording mixerAndreas Mühlschlegel
Supervising sound editorTom Weber
, Dialog Edit, Sound Edit
, Dialog Edit, Sound Edit

Production companies

CompanyComment
Corsofilm

Distribution / Sales companies

CompanyComment
Partisan Filmverleih, Swobodnik, Zacher, Polzer [de]
Germany Theatrical (2020)
Germany Theatrical (2020)

Facilities

DepartmentCompanyComment
Film Processing/TransfersArtus Postproduktion GmbH
Sound (Postproduction)Sono2 GmbH - Sound for Motion Pictures [de]

Festivals

YearCountryFestivalComment
2020GermanyFilmschau Baden-Württemberg
2019GermanyDok Leipzig
Internationales Programm
Internationales Programm

Cinema releases and premieres

TypeCountryDateComment
Theatre releaseGermanyThursday, 09/07/2020
PremiereThursday, 31/10/2019Dok Leipzig