DE 1931, D, C, E, P Ella Bergmann-Michel, SC Ella Bergmann-Michel, Mart Stam, Print b/w, 35mm, silent, 13 min, DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum

“Bergmann-Michel’s WO WOHNEN ALTE LEUTE? provides an excellent example of an appropriate solution to the urgent housing question. It shows a model retirement home, built by architect Mart Stam for Frankfurt Main. The film is intended to advance this important topic throughout the world.” (“Neue Filme vom Bauen”, Kunst und Volk, Issue 5, January 1932) The building design was titled “Collective”. Ella Bergmann-Michel is especially interested in the moments of social interaction: like the residents, she permits herself to be guided by the possibilities and departures which the open interior design presents. “A cheerful interweaving of rooms; the windows allow the covered walkways and chat rooms to glide into each other. A promotional film without gimmicks, a filmed primer that combats prejudice.” (Frankfurter Zeitung, 15 January 1932)

DE 1932, D, SC, C, E Ella Bergmann-Michel, P Ella Bergmann-Michel, Paul Seligmann, Print b/w, 35mm, silent, 9 min, DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum

“A documentary film about the relief organisation that supported Frankfurt’s kitchens for the unemployed. The film screened in all cinemas in Frankfurt in September 1932 to kick off a major public donation campaign. The Frankfurter Zeitung wrote: ‘This film demonstrates, in a simple and completely unadorned fashion, the wretchedness of the direst unemployed and penniless existence…’ It also demonstrates both the social importance and the organisation of the kitchens. […] The film’s guiding principle is ‘Everyone must help!’” (Ella Bergmann-Michel, The Getty Research Institute, 88-A256; 880303) “It is interesting that major film companies refused to produce a film such as this one about the kitchens for the unemployed, arguing that the costs for the lighting equipment alone would be too high. Frau Bergmann-Michel had to make the film on her own, despite great difficulties and on a very small budget.” (Volksstimme Frankfurt, 29 September 1932)

DE 1932, D, SC, C, E Ella Bergmann-Michel, P Ella Bergmann-Michel, Paul Seligmann, Print b/w, 35mm, silent, 21 min, DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum

“Documentary film shot in the streets and on the squares of Frankfurt – recordings caught by observing the professional lives of various people who sold goods, sometimes without police authorisation, while they were unemployed.” Ella Bergmann-Michel, notes on her films, Sprengel archive Inv. No. A 40.04c-01-)
By the early 1930s, phantasms of female awakening and self-empowerment – as well as female flâneurs – had long been fixed medial images. But a woman roaming on her own with a film camera, observing and staging the urban environment with all its hidden corners, represents a solitary departure into the public sphere. She literally goes behind the scenes of the “travelling hawkers” and the funfair activity.

DE 1932, D, SC, C, E, P Ella Bergmann-Michel, Print b/w, 16mm, silent, 11 min, DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum

“Documentary film about a walk in the Rhön Mountains and the catching of trout and graylings. Film material: set up myself, without a script, just direct observation,” notes Ella Bergmann-Michel soberly of this cinematic stream of consciousness. Organic and abstract figures splash in and over each other; light and shadow undulate in waves. The rural residents are brought into the flow of images; their activities are studied closely for a moment; the look straight into the camera catches us as well.

Fragment. DE 1932/33, D, SC, C, E Ella Bergmann-Michel, P Ella Bergmann-Michel, Paul Seligmann, Print b/w, 35mm, silent, 13 min, DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum

“The last film remained a fragment. There were shots of campaign posters, of lively street discussions, of typical followers of the various parties. Frankfurt’s streets and alleyways – already decorated with Nazi flags, hammers and sickles, and the familiar flag with the three arrows – were captured in the documentary. Then I had to break off filming for political reasons. That was in January 1933.” (Ella Bergmann-Michel, Meine Dokumentarfilme., Sprengel Museum Hannover, Inv. No. A 40. 04 – c – 01) After the police seizure and confiscation of the recently filmed footage, Ella Bergmann-Michel and Paul Seligmann decided to take the raw film material into exile in England to keep it from the Nazis

The camera’s searching look along the streetscape takes on an additional political edge. It lingers at advertising columns and studies their torn paper as visible signs of protest; it seeks out the exits of workplaces to observe employees. Puzzled, it registers ordinary gestures in threatening uniforms; it follows the gathering electorate, then remains standing behind a flagpole. The flâneur becomes a witness to the increasing crisis, to the evident grip of the future regime on daily life. She observes the perceptible acquiescence and self-fashioning of the majority of the population as well as the disappearing remnants of palpable resistance. She gathers evidence.