An der Saale hellem Strande

An der Saale hellem Strande deals with the memory of Delfin Guerra and Raúl Garcia Paret. The two Cubans came to Merseburg in 1979 as contract workers to work in the nearby chemical plants in Leuna. Two months after their arrival, they died following a violent altercation in a discotheque not far from the Saale river. Their deaths were never fully investigated.

During a tour of Merseburg, fragments of text are juxtaposed on the audio level: Memories of former contract workers are combined with other voices from Merseburg, excerpts from Stasi files and newspaper articles contrast with street interviews and Facebook comments. With this dense collage, the film reflects on memory, repression and racist continuities.

Modern palimpsests in the form of graffiti and scratched stickers scattered throughout Merseburg, the ruins of the Saaletal discotheque overgrown by the forest and murky underwater shots stand as visual metaphors for struggles for collective remembrance, gaps in memory and the overwriting and concealment of racist violence.