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.