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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.

F our elephants were leading. Then followed the eunuchs. In purple robes, with floor below. Neat domestic culture with a wall unit, tablecloths and sofa cushions. Only
the heavy, stinging smell of charcoal, which hovered above all of Istanbul, could not be
pearls in their hair. Then Pulcheria, his sister, in a tunic of Indian silk, and Aelia, his
wife, crowned with the ruby tiara of Empress Helena. Then the 400 Persian slaves, in dispelled here either, like an intruder, an archaic peasant who sits on the floor around
silver armours. Then ten camels, eight dromedaries, six zebras, four bears and last, guid- the campfire between the lacquer furniture and the carpets and grills rabbits he has
ed by the Emperor himself with leather straps, two lions and two leopards. Theodosius caught. Kadir’s whole family was living here. A narrow, concrete five-storey house with
didn’t smile, didn’t stagger, didn’t perspire. He went the last metres on foot. The smooth a water tank on the roof. “Because of the drought in summer”, Kadir translated his
steps down to the Marmara Sea. The crowd, many thousands of people, stared in awe. great-aunt. Then the power failed. And came back again. “This happens frequently”, the
Emperor Theodosius looked out at the sea, closed his eyes, prayed, turned to the crowd great-aunt explained. She served tea, as black and smoky as the charcoal smell over
and called out: “This is where it will stand, my palace. Now and forever and ever!” Then Istanbul. President Atatürk was there as well. He was hanging on the wall. Benignly smil-
he knelt down, passed his hand along the cliff edge and kissed it. The crowd cried out, ing, as a faded black-and-white photograph. Kadir said he now wanted to show me
people fainted, some of them were in tears. Istanbul and we went outside into the rain and the city’s smog. On the way, he talked
The model lies behind my bookcase, the old town of Istanbul, at a scale of 1:500. The about Ernst Jünger, how he had marvelled at the artillery attacks on Paris through the
minarets are bent, the colours faded, the domes of the Styrodur mosques covered in cut of a champagne glass and about the poet Malaparte and his rationalistic villa on
dust. It was to be the grand project, the admission to the diploma. The idea was pre- Capri which, as he quoted the poet, was to be “serious, hard and strict, like myself.” He
sumptuous, a media centre in the old town of climbed up with me to the famous palace cis-
Istanbul, situated right between the Hagia tern with its Roman columns and toppled mar-
Sophia and the remains of the Bukoleon ble heads, he showed me the room where
Palace. But the new professor of structural Atatürk died in the Dolmabahce Palace where
design was looking for talents and had raised all the clocks were stopped at the hour of his
the bar. His architectural office was working on death, and took me to the concert hall in
a similar project for Abu Dhabi. What did the Taksim Square for a performance of Bruckner’s
other chairs offer? A town hall in Rottweil, an Symphony No. 4. On the fourth day, we finally
estate of terraced houses in Essen-Kray and a visited the construction site for the media cen-
retirement home on Lake Tegernsee. Of course, tre, a forgotten green area in front of the
I decided in favour of Istanbul. And a handful remains of the Bukoleon Palace. There were no
of the intrepid did so as well. Such as Kadir. tourists here, hardly any traffic, just the crash-
That was an encouragement, no, it was a chal- ing of the waves against the algae-green, earth-
lenge. Kadir belonged to the elite, among the quake-shifted quay walls and the smell of ship
best of his age group. He read Tolstoy, Ernst diesel, sour milk and fermented fish. After the
Jünger and Yukio Mishima, loved the art of the crusaders, the Ottomans and the building of a
Italian futurists and the buildings by the French railway line, all that was left of the palace were
revolutionary architects, listened to music by cellar vaults, a handful of outer walls and mar-
Mahler, Bruckner and Franz Liszt and was, as a ble doorframes and window reveals scorched
female assistant professor stated in a moment by the sun. I stepped closer and heard voices.
of absent-minded admiration, “handsome like Grafik: Benjamin Reding All these stone rectangles were inhabited.
a fairytale prince”. When he talked, you lis- Plastic bags replaced entrance doors, gas cook-
tened, not only because it was clever but also ers the heating, candles the electric light. Kadir
because of the sound. He made each vowel, each consonant melt like a delicacy walked past as if he hadn’t noticed it. “Who lives here? Kurds?” I don’t know why I said
between the tongue and the palate. Nobody spoke German the way he did. He loved it, what made me think of Kurds in particular. Perhaps because they are being
this language. He hadn’t grown up with it. He had learnt it. Kadir from Istanbul, Kadir supressed, because they are poor, because one hears about them in the daily news on
from the high-rise district in Köln-Kalk, Kadir with the Persian name: the conqueror. television. His eyes became narrow, his fairytale prince face hard. “There are no Kurds.”
I drew my first sketch, it looked like a weak copy of a Zaha Hadid design. I drew a sec- He shook his head, bewildered, even annoyed about so much stupidity. “Kurdistan ...”,
ond sketch. It again looked like drawn by Zaha Hadid. I took a break, built the model, he kept the word in his mouth like venom, “…. what is that?” Kadir looked at me with
for one month in the summer heat of my attic room, and drew the third sketch. It still his earnest, noble, now squinting eyes, searched, tested, probed. And recognized me,
looked like a weak copy of a Zaha Hadid design. Kadir did it better, he didn’t draw any- recognized my affinity to the weak. He briefly laughed out loud, first mocking, then dis-
thing. And said: “Let’s first look at it.” It was cold in Istanbul, rain and piercing wind appointed, then he composed himself: “Let’s go.” For two more days, we traipsed all
came in from the sea. In the airport, I heard Kadir speak Turkish for the first time. When around Istanbul, visited the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia and played minigolf in
one of the men in a steel helmet and a uniform examined our passports for the third a shopping centre. On the plane home, I said it must not be a media centre, one has to
time. It sounded as full of character as his German. Kadir smiled and excused the abra- build housing there, many apartments, with a bathroom and a kitchen and electricity.
sive behaviour of his compatriot. We took a taxi to his grandmother’s house. The one Affordable for anyone. Kadir looked out the window, read and kept quiet. After landing
who had danced with Atatürk. But we never saw her. We stayed with the great-aunt, one in Cologne, he politely shook hands. “I’ll get in touch”, he said and never did.

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