The outside view distorts that which is shown and automatically contains the perspective of the one who is telling the story. Which story do I tell? Which means do I use to tell it? Which players do I choose? Which ones let me tell their story, which don't? The film „repräsent“ displays how documentary and artistic filmmaking is fundamentally biased.
The stories and viewpoints of several members of a Roma family serve to illustrate this conflict – we see pieces of a puzzle that has to stay incomplete. Individual experiences and identities of very distinct persons within the Kwiek family make a contrast with prejudices and real incidents in connection with this family, which is allegedly not representative for the ethnic group of the Roma. The spectrum reaches from a successful dancer in Mannheim to a teacher in Stockholm to an artist in Warsaw. Each one of them has dealt with their identity, their family's reputation and the stigmatization of the Roma in their own way. Being – probably unrepresentative – representatives of the Kwiek family they have to tackle an outside view full of social prejudices. In comparison to that the view from inside does not get a lot of attention in mainstream media.
„repräsent“ asks what the outside view tells about the one behind the camera and how it can be possible for a single individual to represent the whole of a family, an ethnic group or any other construct of a „whole“.
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