Sebastian Heinzel:
Lost Paradise
“Reminiscence is the only paradise from which we cannot be banished.” (Johann Paul Richter)
In the beginning, there are daisies. They can't help it. They're just standing there, in the field. As a child, I like to eat them. Even though they don't taste very good. Until the day that my mother tells me that I can't eat daisies anymore. There's been an accident in the Soviet Union.
More than 20 years pass between an April day in 1986 and my trip to the Ukraine. I want to make a movie about the generation after Chernobyl. What daisies were to me, the marigolds, which grew alongside the path she took to school, were to Olga. Olga and I were the same age when the reactor exploded. Back then, she lived in Pripyat, the city located directly next to the nuclear power plant. She recalls an idyllic childhood growing up in a young city full of children, mushrooms, and dreams of the future. When she was eight years old, Olga and her family were evacuated. Together with her Brazilian husband, she is now returning to the place of her childhood. Today, it is a ghost town.
A movie about the loss of one's homeland and the question about whether or not it's safe to eat the daisies now?
Lost Paradise
Germany 2008, 62 Minutes, Color
Director and screenplay: Sebastian Heinzel
Camera: Stefan Kochert
Editing: Julia Karg and Michael Timmers
Music: Natalia Dittrich and Michael Hecht
Production: Igor Dovgal and Linda Krämer
A co-production of Baden-Württemberg Film Academy and Essence Film
“Reminiscence is the only paradise from which we cannot be banished.” (Johann Paul Richter)
In the beginning, there are daisies. They can't help it. They're just standing there, in the field. As a child, I like to eat them. Even though they don't taste very good. Until the day that my mother tells me that I can't eat daisies anymore. There's been an accident in the Soviet Union.
More than 20 years pass between an April day in 1986 and my trip to the Ukraine. I want to make a movie about the generation after Chernobyl. What daisies were to me, the marigolds, which grew alongside the path she took to school, were to Olga. Olga and I were the same age when the reactor exploded. Back then, she lived in Pripyat, the city located directly next to the nuclear power plant. She recalls an idyllic childhood growing up in a young city full of children, mushrooms, and dreams of the future. When she was eight years old, Olga and her family were evacuated. Together with her Brazilian husband, she is now returning to the place of her childhood. Today, it is a ghost town.
A movie about the loss of one's homeland and the question about whether or not it's safe to eat the daisies now?
Lost Paradise
Germany 2008, 62 Minutes, Color
Director and screenplay: Sebastian Heinzel
Camera: Stefan Kochert
Editing: Julia Karg and Michael Timmers
Music: Natalia Dittrich and Michael Hecht
Production: Igor Dovgal and Linda Krämer
A co-production of Baden-Württemberg Film Academy and Essence Film
