Yellow Species
(1985-87)

Starring: Christin König, Josef Drees, Henry Spencer, Heinrich Hüser,
Dorothee Busch, Bernhard Wutka, among others.

The first full-length feature film by Robert Bramkamp. The young farmer Bernd has problems with the family farm, which is on the point of going bankrupt. A friend comes up with a rescue plan: “The non-production of surplus should not be recognisably different from the production of needs.” This naturally has something to do with the darker abysses of the EC’s zero production target. In Rotterdam, Bernd gets to know the Dutch owner of a cold-storage warehouse who runs an imaginary but really financed meat depot. Henceforth, the pigs that Bernd delivers only exist on paper.

This is repeatedly intercut with images of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Are there parallels with life in the country? Not only agriculture, but also women are undergoing a process of transformation. Bernd’s girlfriend wants to go to drama school. From Kleist’s Penthesilea she declaims that it is well known this is about the struggle for power between men and women.

Writer, Director: Robert Bramkamp
Camera: Herbert Baumann
Sound: Hubertus Müll
Editors: Robert Bramkamp, Martin Hagemann (www.zerofilm.de)
Production Managers: Martin Hagemann, Kirsten Ellerbrake
Starring: Christin König, Josef Drees, Henry Spencer, Heinrich Hüser, Dorothee Busch, Bernhard Wutka, among others.
Production: Silly Girls, ZDF. TV Editor: Peter Nadermann.
Format: 16mm, sw
Length: 90 min.
Premiere: Tage des unabhängigen Films Osnabrück 1987
Screenings:Zeughauskino Berlin 93, Metropolis Hamburg 98, Tage des unabhängigen Films Siegen ‘88, u.a.
TV: March 87 (ZDF)

Distribution:
Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek

Video Rental:
Bibliothek der Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen "Konrad Wolf", Babelsberg (german with english subtitles)