Von Menschen gemacht

A film about the future by Eva Meyer-Keller, Hanna Sybille Müller and the children who took part in Building after Catastrophes

"I'd just buy a huge weather balloon,
that could change the weather and stuff.
Then I'd just destroy the whole world.
Everywhere there'd be tsunamis, tornadoes
and other catastrophes.
Everything would happen at once.
And then there'd be this huge meteorite
which would destroy the whole world.
Men are already on the moon.
The camera is sort of in space,
like a satellite
and then loads of smaller meteorites
come from all sides
and it goes boom!
A new big bang and everything flies through the air."
-- Leo

The material for the film was made in 2009 as part of the performance project Building after Catastrophes in Berlin during which Eva Meyer-Keller and Hanna Sybille Müller, together with seven children intuitively researched catastrophes and built models of (natural) catastrophes from food and everyday objects. The children involved directed themselves and acted as camera operators, performers, narrators, lighting technicians and makers.
The film Von Menschen gemacht is a split screen. On the right the children are shown in long shot during the performance as they construct and demonstrate the disaster scenarios. The left image shows the film they were making during that process in which the children have decided how to show the catastrophes themselves. The discussions they had during the making of the piece forms the film's soundtrack and has English subtitles.