A German Youth - Wellington Film Society

Jean-Gabriel Périot, France/Switzerland/Germany 2015, 93 mins, DCP, Exempt.

Prominent shorts helmer Jean-Gabriel Periot makes a welcome transition to feature-length documentaries with A German Youth, a thought-provoking look at the Baader-Meinhof group and the political debates of the era.

While the people and events are hardly cinema newcomers, this entirely found-footage work takes a different tack, situating the clique and the Red Army Faction within postwar German debates: How was democracy understood in a nation recovering from fascism? Periot’s superb editing, long one of the hallmarks of his award-winning shorts, is much in evidence, and while the direct, post-1970s consequences are left out, intelligent audiences can’t fail to make parallels with today. - Jay Weissberg, Variety, 25 February 2015

Screened in co-operation with the Goethe Institut.