Children Below Deck
Feature documentary film, 2018
93 minutes

CHILDREN BELOW DECK is the personal story of three generations within a family: a grandmother, a father and a daughter – a doctor, a psychoanalyst and a filmmaker. The story focuses on the traumatic experiences of flight and loss transmitted from one generation to the next and follows the traces back to the roots of the Latvian family.

Father and daughter follow the fates of the family members, looking for „answers“ to painful questions and the „truth“ of a suppressed story. Nobody could have imagined how painful this would be.

Bettina Henkel’s documentary film is a psychological road movie about deep-seated wounds caused by the historical upheavals in northeastern Europe.A universal story about the inheritance of mental scars caused by war and suppressed suffering.

 

BEST SOCIO-POLITICAL DOCUMENTARY  “Children Below Deck” by Bettina Henkel

A beautifully constructed and utterly compelling documentary. It shows how important it is for us to face the stories of our wartime enemies in order to understand history, just as it is vital for those perpetrators and collaborators to face their own past, via their own role in it (remember Nuit et Broulliard ?).
This film does just that. It is a complex and nuanced investigation of inherited trauma that demonstrates how the unresolved legacies of World War II and its aftermath continue to warp one family’s relations. Using valuable archive, the protagonists journey to their roots and past in Latvia, Sweden and Poland. This is a brave and very personal investigation of family secrets and traumas among three generations of Baltic Germans through two world wars and the movement of populations in that time. A father and his daughter Bettina Henkel the filmmaker) face the past. As she searches for knowledge, understanding and reconciliation, conflict with her father is never far away, nor is the release of unresolved pain.
The film builds into something complex and emotional as it unflinchingly uncovers a difficult relationship between a mother and son, and how the choices this Baltic German family made during WWII affected their lives. This accomplished and revealing film is also a valuable study of the trauma and impact of guilt passed down through the generations during these conflicted times.

Text by Jury Decision of Beyond Borders Documentary Festival, GR, 2019

Nick Torrens, Director (Jury President, founding member and former National Chair of the Australian International Documentary Conference)
Mandy Chang (Commissioning Editor of Storyville, BBC4)
Panagiotis Tsolias (Director of Communications, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation)
Duncan Petrie (Professor of Film, University of York)
Nadia Stylianou (Cultural Attaché, Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Athens), Diagonale – Festival of Austrian Film, 2018

Based on the premise that unresolved experiences and traumas are infused and inherited from one generation to the next, “Children Below Deck” follows a poignant and complicated process of reconciliation between director Bettina Henkel and her father and, subsequently, both their coming to grips with the memory of his mother. From accusations of a lack of love to an exceedingly overbearing nature, he seems to be consumed by a vindictive interest in scrutinising his mother’s past, in exposing her secrets. Moments of honesty and of direct confrontation exorcise family grudges, and the inquiry into the grandmother’s past strengthens the bond between father and daughter. The family chronicle leaves room, at the same time, for an investigative process set against the two world wars, the population movements and the status of Baltic Germans. “Children Below Deck” is a film with a distinct personal touch, taking stock of what can and can’t be forgiven of those who are no longer with us, of what can be retrospectively justified.

Text by Teodora Leu, 12. One World Romania – International Human Rights & Documentary Festival, 2019

Bettina Henkel embarks on an emotional journey; to process repressed trauma that has been handed down unknowingly from one generation to the next. As a grandchild of war, of a Baltic German man, she fathoms repressions; as a daughter, she asks her father; as a filmmaker, she digs in the archives. And she pushes forth ever deeper into the thicket of  her family biography. A film about culture(s) of remembering and the heredity of wounds, which – as it says in the end – cannot be healed by time alone.                                                  

Text by Jana Koch, Diagonale – Festival of Austrian Film, 2018

 

→ TRAILER  „Children Below Deck“
→ Film poster „Children Below Deck“
→ Press (German)

Streaming Platforms
Vimeo (english version)
→ https://vimeo.com/ondemand/childrenbelowdeck
Kino VOD Club
→ https://www.vodclub.online/film/kinder-unter-deck-2/
flimmit
→ https://www.flimmit.com/download-stream/kinder-unter-deck/
Realeyz
→ https://stream.realeyz.de/media/kinder-unter-deck/0_eafrzesn

Credits
Concept & Direction: Bettina Henkel
Cinematography: Astrid Heubrandtner-Verschuur
Sound and Sounddesign: Stefan Rosensprung
Editing: Oliver Neumann, Niki Mossböck
Music: Thomas Desi
Producers: Oliver Neumann, Sabine Moser
Production Company: FreibeuterFilm
→ http://www.freibeuterfilm.com/

World sales & distribution
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→ http://www.filmdelights.com/