Film workshops by culture connectes

In spring 2025, 14 students aged between 17 and 19 from BHAK Traun, accompanied by their teacher Dzenana Omerovic, spent two days at the Hartheim Castle Learning and Memorial Centre. Under the guidance of Corinna Antelmann, a qualified cultural educator, author and filmmaker who also works as a guide at the Hartheim Castle Learning and Memorial Centre, the pupils explored the memorial site and the exhibition “The Value of Life”. The remaining day and a half was devoted to reflection and discussion on site – using the medium of film. The pupils worked in four teams, in which they developed their respective stories together. They were free to choose which aspect of their experience they wished to focus on.

Each of the resulting short films is an example of ‘reflection on the site’, an ‘interim stage’ in engaging with historical events that are difficult to grasp or comprehend. Historical accuracy and correctness were not the primary focus; rather, the aim was to enable individual engagement with the subject and the site, and to ‘think further’. Thus, in the film “Snapshot”, one group “invented” a photographer documenting crimes in the castle; another group imagined a fictional carer who mentally plays out how she could have granted a victim their freedom – a thought experiment that should become reality as often as possible... These interventions do not distort the facts, but rather highlight the possibility of how things could have been. Artistic creation makes it possible to use engagement with the past to shape the future differently. And that is precisely what memorial work aims to achieve. A brief preview can be found here:

Link to the YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvfIH6HruHTDWPp23k99CkOmvB76Y0Yl8&si=HScZZ94NGzap8an_