Which consequences does the influx of well-to-do Europeans have in the old part of the Moroccan town Marrakesh? How does a Turkish entrepreneur assert herself in Berlin? How is the commodity "desert" marketed in the south of Tunisia? Which influence do Hollywood-films have in response to their locations in the Middle East, in Venice or in Canada? Which rules do traditional craftsman and trader systems follow, and where does one find them even today?

The series Kulturen im Wandel – "cultures in a change" - offers answers to these and many other questions: video-documentations and reports which originate in a collaboration of Terra TV Videoproduktion and the Department of Geography at the University of Mainz.

Theoretical backgrounds

At the moment, fields social-sciences like human geography, sociology and ethnology are in a phase of a new layout: interdisciplinary work wins more and more importance, the single subjects are getting closer and networking becomes part of the game. Since the concept of "Space" is respected no longer as a neutral, given element, but is formed individually by the acting person and only visual by his individual perception. Kulturen im Wandel allows the visualisation of this approach: how are new findings generated? This is carried out by project-work which is accompanied in Germany or in a foreign, "exotic" land about several weeks with the camera. The project managers usually have decade-long experiences in the destination countries what allows access to personal groups which would hardly be possible without this key-persons. This access and the special knowledge allows the conversion of social-scientific questions into the realm of the film: where do we find differences between cultures, where are the common characteristics? How does the co-existing of different cultures change in time? Where are chances and where are risks of an intercultural dialog?

Approach

Shooting on-location underlines the big value on flexibility and geographic accessibility to the events: the films are produced with small, yet professional equipment (25-MBit DV formats), but nevertheless with deliberate renunciation of extensive material like crane and dolly. A determining advantage: the clear size of the study group (two to three persons). The production thereby wins in unobtrusiveness, in exactness and in natural settings.

At the beginning stands only a treatment, no rigid screenplay. A big flexibility thereby arises on site: the possibility to react to spontaneous changes and to take into account every new idiom. The so produced material fascinates by true to life situations, by genuine impressions and by emotional O tones. This impression is strengthened by music which is recorded on-location and provides with it - in contrast to "studio recordings" - a high measure in authenticity. In the end, professional speakers and computer-graphics provide a homogeneous and above all a correct and precise general impression.

Audience – target group

Kulturen im Wandel is directed, primarily, at interested laymen, at pupils in their final year in politics, history and geography lessons, further to students of social-sciences and of course for interested broadcasting stations.