by Cora Buhlert

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Tomorrow is the first Advent Sunday, which marks the start of the holiday season. All over West Germany – and in the East as well – families will be gathering around the coffee table to light the first candle on the advent wreath, while enjoying homemade cookies.

The holiday season is also the season of Christmas markets, when cities big and small are transformed into impromptu holiday villages, where wooden stalls offer mulled wine, sausages, roasted almonds, Schmalzkuchen, gingerbread and seasonal trinkets, while children enjoy a spin on the merry-go-round or the Ferris wheel and teenagers hang out at the bumper cars. For the town of Delmenhorst, this year marks the first time in thirteen years that they get to enjoy a Christmas market in their own town rather than having to travel to nearby Bremen for some seasonal cheer, because in 1953, Delmenhorst's Christmas market lost its original site to construction work. The vendors were promised a market in a different location, but it took until this year for Friedrich Trumpf, operator of a sausage stall, to take matters in his own hands and organise a Christmas market in Delmenhorst.

The holiday season is also the time to cozy up in front of the TV with a mug of hot chocolate or mulled wine to enjoy the latest programs. And at least for me, West German television has gotten a lot better in the past few months.

A New Wave of West German Science Fiction

West Germany is normally not a good source of science fiction movies and TV shows. Ever since Raumpatrouille Orion burst onto our screen four years ago, we haven't seen any other homegrown science fiction movies or TV shows. And international science fiction programs like America's Star Trek or Britain's Doctor Who haven't yet reached our screens either. Therefore, any science fiction film or show that makes it to West German television is a rare treat indeed. And now we have gotten two very good science fiction TV movies in the space of two months. Christmas truly came early this year. Last month, I reviewed The Million Game, a remarkable West German TV science fiction movie that blurred the lines between fiction and reality. Today, I review another fascinating West German TV science fiction movie that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, though it takes a very different approach than The Million Game. This TV movie is called Die Delegation – eine utopische Reportage (The Delegation – a Utopian Documentary) and was written and directed by Rainer Erler, a young filmmaker who has made a name for himself in the past eight years. This is his first foray into science fiction.

Fact and Fiction

Continue reading [November 28, 1970] A True Fake Story: Die Delegation – eine utopische Reportage (The Delegation – a Utopian Documentary) →