Films

GOOD LUCK! - THREE LIVES IN COLLIERY

The miner's Family Spranger–Novaczick used to work over generations in the Colliery "Zollverein" in Essen. Father Spranger had come here from Thuringia after WW II to work in the coal mines. The ancestors from the Novaczicks emigrated from Poland. They are one of the typical families that helped shape the Ruhrgebiet. It is new that the colliery, which has been declared an UNESCO World Cultural Heritage, gives the family work again today: Daughter Jutta works as a guide for the visitors that come here from all over the world to admire the site. The old factory halls change into museums, music and theatre halls – not chimneys but festival premieres belong to every day life now. On the other hand people are connected to the place by their own story beyond the new aura: They know of the anxiety that came from the very real danger of underground mining and they are still relying on the feeling of unity amongst the former colleagues. They look at the rebirth of the colliery for art and culture with restraint. In the ARTE documentary "Good Luck!" they say very clearly that the change is not for them.

That feeling is exactly what Gerard Mortier, the artistic director of the "Ruhrtriennale" (prestigious 3–yearly festival of arts and music taking place in old industrial buildings), wants to overcome. For ARTE he explains his plans to fight the reservations and the good things about the cultural change. One of the youngest members of staff of the festival is the 26 year old Julian Rybarski. He is a child of the Ruhrgebiet who has arrived at the new times being the cultural manager of the "Ruhrtriennale". For him the romanticism of the older generation that wants to turn back the time is incomprehensible – he is only interested in the future of the megapolis Ruhrgebiet.

What happens to the Ruhrgebiet in the near future will depend on the people that live here. The film demonstrates the tensions that one has to reckon with. ARTE documents the doubts of the Spranger–Novaczicks just as much as the enthusiasm of the young Rybarski – family stories that are a piece of the history of the region.

A film by ARTE, 2003
45 min. documentary

Director: Florian von Stetten
Photographer: Nils Theodor
Editor: Bettina Strunk
Commissioning Editor: Andrea Ernst


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