Lutz Dammbeck “Overgames”
One of the most popular West German TV shows in the 1960s was Nur nicht nervös werden based on the US show Beat the Clock and hosted by Joachim Fuchsberger. Years later in a chat show, Fuchsberger recalled that the games were derived from those used with psychiatric patients in the US, prompting the question, “So how many crazy people watched your show?” His answer: “One crazy, psychologically disturbed nation”. But why should the Germans—or more precisely, the West Germans—have been a psychologically disturbed nation? Lutz Dammbeck’s film looks at serious and funny games, therapies for reeducation and self-reeducation, and the history of the idea of a permanent revolution. The film also includes game show directors and producers, psychiatrists, anthropologists and paranoiacs of all kinds. Screening followed by Lutz Dammbeck in conversation with Barbara Wurm.
Shown as part of the Berlin Art Week 2015