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German proposes stolen generation film

21 April 2004 - German film director Jo Baier wants to make a movie about Australia's stolen generation.

Baier, who is visiting Australia for the first time as part of the German Film Festival, would like to make a film about a young Aboriginal girl fostered to German immigrants.

"I have heard about some subjects that interest me very much," Baier said.

"It is about an Aborigine woman that was taken from her parents and given to a German couple and when she grew up she always thought they were her parents.

"When she came to school at six she had to realise she was an Aborigine so it was difficult for her. She is now a story teller and she still thinks and acts like a German sometimes."

Baier is hoping to meet the woman during his visit to Australia and thinks the film, which would be in German, would be of interest to people overseas.

Baier is one of the highest profile German film makers, having worked on more than 70 feature and documentary movies since beginning his career in 1979.

His latest productions Swabian Children and Operation Valkyrie are being shown at the German Film Festival which is running simultaneously in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

His other films include Rauhnacht, Wildfeuer, Der Weibsteufel and Verlorenes Land.

"It makes me very positive to think that the film language is universal, more than speech," Baier said of his films being shown in Australia.

Describing German film making, Baier said the industry was beginning to get "better and better again".

"Right now over the last few years we have a new generation of film makers who are trying to find a language to express themselves and I think this is absolutely necessary in film making.

"It is not enough to just copy Hollywood because they are mostly bad copies."

Twenty-seven-year-old Benjamin Quabeck, from Wuppertal, is one of those up and coming film makers.

His first feature film Play It Loud is being shown at the film festival.

Source: AAP

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