THE SULINGEN-PROJECT

THE SULINGEN-PROJECT is a documentary by Martin Hermann and Frank Wenker. The documentary deals with an exciting journey through the long-forgotten days of a small town in northern Germany. One thousand years full of life, human destinies, successes, and adversities bring local history to life. The style of this film is based on a combination of interviews, archive footage, fiction, and photos. The historical reconstruction is very detailed and well done, representing a huge job in terms of equipment, costumes, and props. With this film, they have succeeded in taking a journey through well over a thousand years of the history of their hometown, something no community of comparable size can easily imitate. Since the start of the project in 2016, there have been 23 days of shooting and 350 extras to recreate special events from 1,000 years of Sulingen. The team, which has since grown to five main figures around Werner Focke, Christine Nordenholz, and Kerstin Melloh-Kordes, conducted 35 interviews with contemporary witnesses and historians. These are valuable interviews, as some of the protagonists have already passed away. The cinematography is really refined and well done, and the rhythm of the editing also helps to keep the audience’s attention throughout the documentary. The music and sound design underline the emotional moments of the film very well. The actors are also very well directed in the reconstruction scenes. The narrative line of the film was written and well developed by Martin Hermann, Kerstin Melloh-Kordes, Knut Teske, and Frank Wenker. It was produced by Werner Focke, Kerstin Melloh-Kordes, and Christine Nordenholz, and even if the budget was not high for such a complex project, the documentary did not suffer from this condition. For all these reasons, THE SULINGEN-PROJECT won Best Historical Film at the May 2023 Monthly Competition of the Berlin Indie Film Festival. Congratulations to all cast and crew!