Elli talks to her son about her working and reproductive conditions in the GDR and offers a situational insight into the working class’s fears for the future and their livelihoods, and why things haven’t worked out any other way.

Elli is a single saleswoman in a empty furniture store in the GDR. During working hours she does the shopping, organizes the family, goes to the municipal office and does her own business with food, furniture and learns to show solidarity. With the fall of the Wall, she loses her job and her security and feels how capitalism changes people. Elli sits together with her son in her atelier today and talks retrospectively about the class conditions before and during the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She observes how cohesion is lost and how money becomes more and more an issue between people. She gives her son an insight that clarifies which future and existential fears in the working class are connected with the fall of the Berlin Wall and which atmosphere she associates with this event and why it simply didn’t work any other way.

Title: Anders hat es ja nicht funktioniert (Otherwise it has not worked)
Genre: Documentary form
Year: 2023
Duration: 17
Format: 16:9, Full HD, DCP, Colour
Sound: Stereo
Premiere: Monstrale Festival, Halle/Saale, Germany (2023)
Screenings: Festival OSTEN Bitterfeld-Wolfen (2023), 2x Freie Filmwerkstatt im Bundesplatz-Kino (2023), Café Cralle Berlin (2023)

Cast: Elli Limber, Christian Limber
Paintings: Elli Limber
Sounddesign: Christian Obermaier
Color Grading: Christian Limber
Artistic Consulting: Dane Komljen, Lara Dade, Mazlum Demir, Jan Barner, Miriam Trostorf, Evi Jägle, Christian Diaz-Orejarena, Sophie Gmeiner, Tommaso Marinaro, Philip Treschan, Olga Monina, Verena Brakonier Translation: Janan Laubscher, Philip Treschan, Katherina Sattler
Additional Music Support: Jonas  Rudolph
Production: University of Arts Berlin, Christian Limber