DIE AUSSTATTUNG DER WELT

A rolling toy fish is absorbed in a postcolonial question, goes in search of clues – not in Berlin’s Humboldt Forum – but in three German film prop houses. An array of social and professional milieus have grown up at the three prop houses Prop Department Babelsberg, Delikatessen Requisiten Fundus Berlin and FTA Props in Hamburg. Susanne Hein, Miu Quell, Andreas Gabbert and the three Peters are experts in moving, processing, sorting and presenting up to 100,000 different things. Then they emerge as quotes from film and TV productions. Turning the focus onto film props reveals an eccentric history of German film, tracing their appearances in such movies as “Kolberg”, “Großstadtrevier”, “Welt am Draht”, “Prüfstand 7”, “Finsterworld” or “Sonnenallee”, but also in the daily soap “Verbotene Liebe”. In “Make Up The World”, BiPOC actor Thelma Buabeng assumes the documentary role of Cleo. She plays a doctoral student in postcolonial studies, is immersed in provenance research and jobs part-time in the props house. Here she unearths a parallel daily thing-life of African objects, an unexpected subject for her doctoral thesis. Finally, her attention is caught by an enigmatic painting from Fundus Studio Babelsberg, a portrait of an African woman holding a clock.

Trailer