Fluchtburg

Refuge

Marte and Gerhart Pohl own a house in the Giant Mountains. At the border between the Third Reich and Czechoslovakia. Where from 1933 to 1945, they hide people and help them escape. She is a communist from Berlin, he is a Silesian catholic. They help people of different religious and ideological convictions. In 1946, history is turned on its head and the Pohls have to leave their house in the newly founded socialist Poland. This story is written down in coded form in Gerhart Pohl’s novel “Fluchtburg” (1955) and correlates in the film with the rugged mountain landscape. The now renovated house is the force field of this mountain film that maps out a panorama of lost literary history of Central Europe. (Bernhard Sallmann)

Director's Biography

Bernhard Sallmann (*1967, Linz) completed his studies of German, media studies and sociology in Salzburg and Berlin, as well as film directing at Film University Babelsberg. Since 2004 he has been a freelance filmmaker based in Berlin. Sallmann received numerous awards, including the DEFA Förderpreis for TRÄUME DER LAUSITZ and the 2017 CROSSING EUROPE Local Artist Award for ODERLAND. FONTANE.

Director's Filmography (Selection)
Fluchtburg (Refuge, 2023, doc) - Berlin JWD (2022, doc; CE22) - Über Deutschland (On Germany, 2021, doc; CE21) - Havelland Fontane (2019, doc) - Spreeland Fontane (2018, doc; CE19) - Rhinland. Fontane (2017, doc; CE18) - Oderland. Fontane (2016, doc; CE17) - Die Welt für Sich und die Welt für Mich (2013, doc; CE14) - Fastentuch 1472 (Lenten Veil 1472, 2015, doc) - Das schlechte Feld (The Bad Field, 2011, doc; CE11) - Die Lausitz 20X90 (2004, doc; CE06)