As part of a film project, students on the Bachelor’s degree programme in International Relations have explored the theme of ‘borders’. The result is a documentary well worth watching, which will be screened at the Tichelpark Cinemas in Kleve on 22 January 2020 at 3.00 pm.
Historical, curious or long-forgotten borderline cases in the Germany-Belgium-Netherlands tri-border region – this is the subject of the documentary produced by students on the Bachelor’s degree programme in International Relations in collaboration with freelancers from Westdeutscher Rundfunk. To achieve this result, they first attended various workshops on ‘scriptwriting’, ‘filming’ and ‘editing’. Seven short films were then shot in the German-Belgian-Dutch border region. The short films, which have been edited together to form the 35-minute documentary, deal, amongst other things, with German exclaves in Belgium and the situation following the Second World War, when Emmerich-Elten and Selfkant were temporarily part of the Netherlands. The project also explores the ‘cannon line’, which marks a section of the German-Dutch border, as well as a border section that runs for several kilometres in the middle of a busy road.
The film project was led by Dr Jan Niklas Rolf, who works at the university as a research assistant in the Department of Political Science, specialising in international relations. “The aim of the project is to provide students with practical, specialist knowledge about the significance and influence of borders. By designing and filming a documentary, they also acquire methodological skills,” said Dr Rolf. It was a very special experience for the participating students. Emma Küpfer, for example, who is in her third semester studying International Relations and moved to Kleve specifically to pursue her degree, had the chance to get to know her new home from a different perspective: “I decided to take part in the project because I grew up in the Germany–France–Switzerland border region. Now I wanted to get to know the national borders near my new home better, and I was also able to link this to my studies,” explains Küpfer.
The film will be screened on 22 January 2020 at 3.00 pm in Cinema 3 at Tichelpark Cinemas, Kleve. There will also be a short accompanying academic programme. The film features scenes in German and English, with subtitles in the other language. Not only students and staff from the university, but also members of the public are warmly invited to attend the event. Any enquiries can be directed by email to Ann-Cathrin Coenen (ann-cathrin.coenen@hsrw.org).
