The Empty Center

The Empty Center — Plot

Steyerl’s film traces the impact of an influx of transnational companies on the city dwellers of Berlin in post-reunification Germany. The effect of the changing economy and politics on the city and its inhabitants is echoed through their physical relocation to its outer edges. In 1990, squatters proclaim a socialist republic on the death strip. Eight years later, the new headquarters of Mercedes Benz are built in the same location. The film makes use of slow super-impositions to uncover a journey across changing architectural and cultural boundaries. "The Empty Centre" tries to give a voice and a history to those who continue to be marginalised by the simultaneous dismantling and reconstruction of the borders which they are trying to cross.

• Release date
• January 1, 1998
• Runtime
• 62 min
• Genres
• Documentary
• Director
• Hito Steyerl