“The theme of the film is the escape route of the German emigrés in France in 1940/41. It describes a research of the past against the background of landscapes and towns which once were scenes of persecution. The leitmotif of the journey is Anna Seghers’ novel Transit.
“Jost’s outsider is Frank Goya, a guy with a red shirt, a far-fucking-out-in-the-morning-man delivery, and a fist full of Polaroid snapshots. Ever-cool Goya peers into the camera, announces that he’s a motel-haunting divorce-dick and from then on Angel City is kabuki Raymond Chandler.
“To begin with, I imagined the story set in a children’s school, not of teens. I thought that it could be interesting that the school was for very young girls, eight, ten years old. This was the first version.
“The Hunters reflects how a man of my generation sees Greek history, a history whose continuation blends with the years of my own life. It is a study of the historical conscience of the Greek bourgeoisie. In Greece, the ruling class is afraid of history and, for this reason, hides it.
News from Home consists of long takes of locations in New York City, set to Akerman’s voice-over as she reads letters her mother sent her between 1971 and 1973, when the director lived in the city.
Dear child,
