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Jeden Monat nähern sich unsere Kolumnisten, die Berliner Filmemacher Dominik und Benjamin Reding, dem jeweiligen Heftthema
auf ihre ganz eigene Art und Weise. Geboren wurden die Zwillinge am 3. Ja nuar 1969 in Dortmund. Während Dominik Architektur
in Aachen und Film in Hamburg studierte, absolvierte Benjamin ein Schauspielstudium in Stuttgart. 1997 begann die Arbeit an ihrem
ersten gemeinsamen Kinofilm „Oi! Warning“. Seitdem arbeiten sie für Fernseh- und Kinofilmprojekte zusammen.

Each month our columnists, Berlin-based filmmakers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, approach the respective issue-specific theme
in their very personal way. The twins were born on January 3, 1969 in Dortmund. Whilst Dominik studied architecture in Aachen
and film in Hamburg, Benjamin graduated in acting studies in Stuttgart. They started working on their first joint motion picture “Oi!
Warning“ in 1997. Since then they have tightly collaborated for TV and cinema film projects.

I didn’t really want to go there. Particularly not right now. The risk of taking the train Allinger, Herta Hammerbacher. The winner was a Mister Glocker from the municipal
is said to be higher, after all, as I had read. And I had been hoping that they would
garden- and cemeteries department. And he got going, designed a supersized front
call me. If they like it, they usually call. If they like it less, they invite you to have a talk. garden fit for a director general. With a cableway and a miniature railway, tortuous
If they don’t like it at all, they send you a letter. They invited me. Right now, in the paths and large meadows, curved terraces and dotted parasols and here and there a
middle of the crisis. Oh well, maybe they even liked my new script a bit more rather further attraction: a rosarium, an ice-cream parlour, an aviary, a Japanese tea house,
than a bit less. Meeting with the editorial department in the Dortmund regional studio. the flamingo pond and – at the bottom of the grounds – a big lake with a music stage,
In my old hometown. A coincidence. The intercity express was empty, and the railway boat rentals and, as the highlight, the key feature, a water organ. I turned off behind
station was empty and the platforms, the kiosks, all of it. Like on a Sunday. A Sunday the flamingo pond, walked across the big meadow down to the lake. Unoccupied, the
during the summer holidays. I had to change trains at the main station to get onto the cableway cars rattled above me. The meadow as well was deserted except for a young
suburban line to Hagen. Here as well, not one person, the conductress didn’t even couple with children. The parents took pictures with the smartphone and the chil-
check my ticket. Still so much time! Usually, the trains are late, now I have two hours dren, a boy and a girl, played and laughed and whooped on the newly mown lawn.
to spare. The third stop is the regional studio, the second one is called Signal Iduna In AIT, I had read about the BUGA 2019 in Heilbronn that the open spaces would there
Park and means the football arena. In former times, the station sign read Westfalen- be built on after the end of the exhibition, with urgently needed flats. The garden de-
stadion and, below it, with a direction arrow, Westfalenpark. I got off and knew the signers were very proud of their idea. And I pondered how this park might look if one
way from long ago, past underpasses, railway tracks, main roads, parking lots, glass had done the same thing here after 1959. Then 30 apartment blocks would be stan-
insurance buildings and the deserted stadium, ding on the meadow all in rows and in a east-west
dark and purpose-free like a suddenly abandoned direction and, between them, long since rusted
knight’s castle. Except the word “Park” in parking, frames for beating carpets. And while I was wat-
nothing here looked like a green area. Nothing but ching the children of the year 2020 frolicking and
a small snack car lost and lonely like an emer- enjoying themselves on the meadow of 1959, I be-
gency-landed UFO on the vast asphalt surface: came rebellious and thought: when has a park
Würstchen Gruchowski. “Not a lot going on today, been newly opened at all in my neighbourhood,
right?” The sturdy vendor was standing in front of when in yours, dear readers, during the last ten,
the car, smoking, she looked at me and shook her 20, 30 years? Where did the municipal powers pro-
head. “Well, whenever there is a football match, vide lawn areas, flower beds, water organs and fla-
we make a nice profit. And during the week, those mingo ponds? I arrived at the lake. The water
from the insurance companies come here.” “And organ had been a relic from the droll era when Fe-
now?” (Ah, now I was slipping into the local dia- deral Chancellors smoked cigars and Federal Pre-
lect dropping the “r”, for instance, as it frequently sidents wore shepherd’s plaid patterned hats. At
happens to me in the old homeland.) “Well, there the entrance to the park, a plastic clock showed
is just nothing going on.” She stubbed out the ci- when the organ was to start. The visitors gathered
garette. “But it will come back!” She crammed at the big lake, reverently waiting. “Da-tadatada,
new paper napkins into the holder. “It has to, my tadata, dam, dam, ta.” The first bars of Tchaikov-
two little ones want to have something to eat, after Foto: Benjamin Reding sky’s Nutcracker Suite sounded from grating loud-
all.” And she also called after me: “And take care speakers. And suddenly – “Oh, ah!” – the fountains
you don’t pick anything up, you hear?” They had shot out of the water, up and down with every bar,
remodelled the entrance. Formerly, when I first came here with my parents, it was not- mightier and higher with every fanfare, every tremolo. “Tidetidelit!”
hing more than a white clinker box for a ticket office; now some elaborate zigzag con- My smartphone rang. The television editor. I listened, I nodded: “Of course, yes, un-
traption that, at the time it was built, was probably called postmodern. derstood, the meeting has been postponed, due to the disease. An alternate date? Not
“You’re still in luck, as of Monday, it will all be closed here as well.” The man behind fixed yet, aha, you will call me, thank you, goodbye.” The water organ no longer exi-
the glass gave me a ticket and sighed. “This is really a shitty situation.” He said it sted. Turned off, already years ago. For financial reasons, as it was explained. I stood
softly and not addressed to me. Behind the revolving door, the old sense of orientation on the shore, closed my eyes, and heard it again, the Nutcracker Suite, clanking and
quickly came back: the television tower on the left, the large meadow on the right and grating, felt the warm Spring air, smelled the newly mown lawn, heard the laughter
in the middle – indeed, it was still there – the “flamingo pond”, a baby-blue, kidney- of the children. And suddenly I could feel my parents’ hands again, as they held me
shaped water basin and in it, as if lovingly arranged by a window dresser, these my- left and right, firm and safe. And then I suddenly felt wetness on my face. But that
sterious birds, the flamingos, whose pink-feathered bodies seemed to defy all laws was not the fountain, after all, it must have been a draught across the lake. Quite cer-
of statics. The city fathers had christened the television tower Florianturm for the ope- tainly that was it. Now I knew what I wanted in my old hometown. I took the train,
ning of the BUGA Bundesgartenschau in 1959. “Florian”? The name might have some- the suburban line, just two stops, then the shortcut to the station, as always. I walked
thing to do with floristry, its Bavarian touch, however, did as little go with the Ruhr up the street, past the bend with the two chestnut trees, and when I rounded the cor-
region as if one had called a mine “Xaver” or a coal stock “Traudel”. Famous garden ner, I saw the light in my mother’s kitchen and upstairs in my brother’s former room.
architects had submitted designs for the Dortmund BUGA: Herrmann Mattern, Gustav I exhaled, I was reassured – no, I was happy.

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