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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.

O h no, he’s waking up on us!” I can hear it but I don’t know who is talking. I look nit shingles which project across the building edges in such a strangely coarse way as
if yeast is welling out of a glass that is too narrow. “And extend! And again: extend!”
around but I don’t know where I am. I want to say something but I don’t know
how. And suddenly I don’t even know anymore that I once knew something. “Quick, The man in the tracksuit looks at me with the dismal certainty that it is impossible to
give him one more injection!” Does somebody say this? Isn’t it very cold here? Why turn me into a “sports fan”. I am hanging at the wall bars and I am supposed to pull
am I so tired? Haven’t I been to a party yesterday? Then: silence. Black, deep, weight- myself up on it. To build up my chest muscles, as the sportsman explains. “You need
less. “It has taken four hours … for such a small fracture. Only one hour was initially this in order to later cope with your crutches!” Then the sportsman leaves and I am
planned. You are sure causing problems.” She had probably been talking to for longer doing the pull-ups. Someone is watching me. From the entrance. A robust guy in a
time but it is only now that the perception, the memory, the “I”, is back. A nurse is wheelchair, to the right of the wheels are dumbbells which he – his upper body shows
watching me, her voice friendly, her look confident, with practiced skill she handles it – frequently uses. He looks serious, reserved, almost grim. I stop the nonsense with
the catheter. Wow, this sticks in my vein. “If you need painkillers, just let us know.” the pull-ups, push my wheelchair towards him. Now I realize that he has to be youn-
She smiles, I nod, she leaves. Painkillers? What for? I feel nothing at all. But, reassu- ger, maybe 20 years old, no more. He sees me, asks: “How long have you been here
ring surprise, I am able to move my head: Two people sound asleep are lying in the already!” “Just a few days”. “And how much longer?” “Don’t know, two weeks maybe.
beds next to me, hooked up to catheters and tubes. Their faces are serious, as if after It is only a broken foot.” Suddenly he looks angry, almost enraged, and I am doubtful
a major, totally exhausting effort. Oh, now I know: I am in a recovery room, I had an whether I should ask something else but then do it: “And how long for you?” “A few
accident, I am in hospital! The power of insight pulls me up and pain pushes me back months, at least.” With a jerk, he pulls the blanket on his knees aside. Both his lower
down again. Ouch, my foot! This is why I am here. Yesterday, or the day before yester- legs are missing. The stumps are heavily bandaged. “It was a test of courage, with
day, yes, when….? Looking for a film location in the Sauerland region, the abandoned mates … at the underground”, he tries to smile. “But it went wrong”. And indeed, in
outdoor pool in Herdecke, the chance visit to the motor- his face, the angular movements, I can feel something
cycle club which was partying there. The young biker in brutal, someone who is looking for a fight because he
a chain-mail shirt with his beer-drinking ferret on his will win, confident before the dare. And because I don’t
shoulder, then the “fun” wrestling match. What was it want to end the short talk with “Oh, how sad” or “Shit
he had said? That he had once been a frogman, in the happens”, I add: “And what is your profession?” “Roofer,
army. He did indeed swirl around me like a slippery eel. third apprenticeship year”, he looks down his body,
Something crunched in my foot, a sudden pain, I fell, “that has now come to an end”, and pulls the blanket
couldn’t get up. The frogman didn’t even notice it, left back again. “Now it’s your turn!” The sportsman is back,
the scene laughing. And yet came back, much later, car- he says it with a grin but it sounds like a threat. And the
ried me back to the tent. “Could maybe somebody take young wheelchair user grips the wheels, pushes for-
me to a doctor …? “No, they’re all far too drunk …” He wards as if he were rowing, through an adverse, stormy
bundled me into an open-back truck. “Here you will be sea. He is safe with the dumbbells. He lifts them at once,
left in peace!” The night became sleepless, the foot was needs no prompting. When he feels the muscles, his own
swelling, the shoe had to come off, I pulled it off despite strength, the sweat running from his armpits, he casts a
the pain, then I developed the shivers, nausea, then a Foto: Benjamin Reding glance at me and nods briefly. He hesitates at first, the
fever, everything blurred, smudged, dissolved, dripped nodding is an effort to him. No doubt everyone is a
away. Unconsciousness. There is a smell of rosemary, cripple here for him, talking to them endangers his own
the walls are shimmering ochre and all the windows are cut askew. “Finally, I thought status, threatens his self-esteem. Sometimes I see him again, in front of the clinic,
you would never wake up again.” Someone is grinning at me, an older man. “They smoking, always alone, his “mates” from the dare are never there. I ask something
moved you across today, into leg surgery. Man, you have been so lucky!” “Lucky…?” obvious, I ask him about the roof (and secretly hope for a craftsmanship-based con-
I hear my voice, for the first time since …, well, since when? It sounds scratchy, demnation). He looks up, thoughtfully presses his lips together, then: “Looks cool!”
strange. The old man again notices my surprise. “Well, that you have been taken into My brother comes to get me. A last walk through the bevelled wooden doors with
an anthroposophical hospital. That Rudolf Steiner, he was an angel, a healer, a pro- their carved profiles, also past the kind-looking black-and-white photograph of Mr
phet!” I nod and look at my foot in a plaster cast. “Comminuted fracture in the right Steiner and past the farewell glance of the young roofer. He is sitting near the entrance
ankle joint!” Again my neighbour in the next bed notices my astonishment. “An hour and smoking and looks at me – I am already on crutches – with the glance of someone
ago, there was a doctor’s visit. But you were still sleeping.” Now he awkwardly turns drowning, without a lifebuoy. For two years, I was still limping, then the fracture, the
on his side. “With me, it is just a usual case, neck of the femur, what you’re likely to hospital, the nightly biker party, the benevolent Mr Steiner and his bulging roofs were
get once you are over 70 …” And he puts on a sleeping mask. “And don’t forget: To- forgotten. Some months ago, the city of Berlin held a competition, for a work of art.
morrow, you are scheduled for muscle-development training, starting at 9 a.m.” And Theme: inclusion. I participated, designed a series of figures made of fibreglass, por-
then, already more softly: “And take a look at the building, it is pervaded by Steiner’s traits of my friends with “handicaps”. The sculptures will shine at night, they will
spirit ….” Then he starts snoring. On my morning wheelchair journey to the hospital show that “the handicapped” are not really handicapped at all, they will show how
sports hall, I take pleasure in the softly colourful walls, even more so in the fact that I see them and how they really are: Beautifully different, in a very special and beau-
they are inclined – this, one knows differently from other hospitals with their endless tiful way. The message of the artwork is clear. It is meant to be understood by all. Also
hallways reminding of the beyond – and I am surprised at the roofs covered with Eter- by the roofer apprentice from Herdecke. I hope it turns out.

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