“Wackersdorf”: Film Screening and Conversation between Oliver Haffner and Christian Martin

Deutsches Haus at NYU, in partnership with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, presents a screening of the film Wackersdorf (2018), a true story of community, taking a stand against injustice and corruption, and being a local-level politician taking on a much stronger governing power. Oliver Haffner, director of the film, will be present at the screening. Following the screening, Oliver Haffner and Christian Martin, the current Max Weber Chair in German and European Studies at NYU, will engage in a conversation about the film and the many questions it raises.

About the film:

Wackersdorf. Directed by Oliver Haffner. Screenplay by Gernot Krää and Oliver Haffner. Germany, 2018, 123 min., in German with English subtitles.

In the early 1980s, Hans Schuierer is county commissioner of an economically-depressed corner of Northeastern Bavaria. Eager to find a way for his unemployed constituents to obtain jobs, he is elated when the Bavarian government decides to build an atomic reprocessing plant in his county. Despite early skepticism from some outspoken locals, Schuierer is determined to bring the project to Wackersdorf, convinced that it will do more good for the people than harm. However, soon his own doubts leave him to decide whether he will side with the growing opposition or with the powerful Bavarian government – who will stop at nothing to see the project through to the end.

About the speakers:

Oliver Haffner was born in 1974 in Germersheim, Rhineland-Palatinate. He grew up in Munich and briefly studied Political Science at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, before transferring and completing his studies in Theater Direction at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. He worked as a director for the stage at the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen), the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, the Schauspielhaus Bochum, Theater Ulm, the Linz State Theatre, Theater Regensburg, and the State Theater of Lower Austria. He studied Feature Film Direction at the University of Television and Film Munich; his graduation film, Mein Leben im Off (2010), was his debut feature film, and appeared in many German cinemas. Wackersdorf is his third feature film. Haffner is a professor of „Media-Specific Representation“ (film-acting) at the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg and a freelance lecturer at the Music and Arts University in the City of Vienna. He continues to be active in both theater and film. Haffner lives and works in Munich and Berlin.

Christian Martin is a professor of political science at the University of Kiel, Germany. He currently holds the Max Weber Chair in German and European Studies at New York University. Martin has studied political science at the University of Konstanz and holds a doctorate from there (2002). Martin was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz and at the Max-Planck-Institute in Jena (2003–2004). He was an assistant professor at the University of Hamburg (2004–2008) and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Northwestern University (2008–2011). Martin’s research interests focus on the political conditions and consequences of globalization and regional integration. He has published, inter alia, on the effects of globalization for electoral participation and on the incentive to adopt more proportional voting systems in a highly globalized environment. His current research project is on backlashes against globalization and EU integration, including the electoral success of the far right AfD and the demise of social democracy.

Attendance information:

Events at Deutsches Haus are free of charge. If you would like to attend this event, please send us an email to [email protected]. Space at Deutsches Haus is limited, please arrive ten minutes prior to the event. Thank you!

“Wackersdorf”: Film Screening and Conversation Between Oliver Haffner and Christian Martin” is a DAAD-sponsored event.