Karl Marx City QA, Petra Epperlein Michael Tucker, NYFF54

Directors Petra Epperlein Michael Tucker discussed their film Karl Marx City after its screening in the 54th New York Film Festival. Having completed their series of Iraq Warera films (starting with Gunner Palace in 2004 and concluding with 2009s How to Fold a Flag), the filmmaking team of Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker turn their attention to the former East Germany of Epperleins childhood, and specifically to the possibility that her father might have been one of the many thousands of citizens recruited as informers by the Stasi. Tucker and Epperlein make some bold stylistic choices (such as shooting in crystalline black and white), all of which pay off: the strange state of living under constant surveillance is both recalled and embodied in this uniquely powerful film.