The Specimen

based on a Grotesque by Valentin Katayev

Germany 2002, DVCam/DigiBeta, black/white, 18:26 minutes

“And in this cabinet” the head of the museum says, “you will find something very unique; in fact unique and one-of-its-kind in all the USSR: the specimen of a philistine from the year nineteen-o-five.”
When, before the revolution, accidentally arrested, the philistine – a tsarist civil servant of high status – falls in deep, lethargic sleep.
20 years later he wakes up and finds himself in a post-revolutionary, still young Soviet Union. He is stunned. He is shocked. But a philistine always finds his way.

German or English titles
Photographs
Cast & Crew
Narrator Hanns Zischler
Director of Museum Raymond Wolff
Philistine Thorsten Heidel
Visitor of Museum
Paperboy
Heidi von Plato
Visitor of Museum
Lady
Eva Ebner
Visitor of Museum
Driver
Citizen
Boris Raev
Visitor of Museum
Worker with placard
Sissi Tax
Singer Oana Kitzu
Accordion Dejan Jovanovic
accompaniment on the
Welte-Cinema-Organ,
Filmmuseum Potsdam
Helmut Schulte
 
Screenplay
Director
Cinematographer
Montage
Ulrike Ottinger
Make-up Cornelia Wentzel
Lighting and Sound Stefan Gohlke
Music Taking Lilly Grote
Avid Editor Bettina Blickwede
Mixing Christian Wilmes
Online Wolfgang Lorenz
Assistant Producer Sean Runge
 
With special thanks to Katharina Sykora
Gabriele Heidecker
Marosch Schröder
Filmmuseum Potsdam

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