The Watch

Director: Anna Brass / 30 min. / 2021 / German, French (ST: German, English, French) / Germany

Wilhelm Scheinhardt is a carpenter and a petty criminal. A French resistance fighter hides in a shed. And the Köhler family receives a phone call: a watch is looking for its owner. But where does the watch belong to after all these years? A tug-of-war over the watch begins and sheds light on today’s commemoration culture.

Director: Anna Brass
Cinematography: Zoe Schmederer
Editing: Narges Kalhoer
Production, Distribution, World Sales: Anna Brass Dokfilm

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Wilhelm Scheinhardt is a carpenter and a petty criminal.
A French resistance fighter hides in a shed.
And the Köhler family receives a phone call: a watch is looking for its owner.
But where does the watch belong to after all these years? A tug-of-war over the watch begins and sheds light on today’s commemoration culture.

CREW
Written and directed by: Anna Brass
Director of photography: Zoe Schmederer
Montage, Dramaturgy: Narges Kalhor
Sound Recordist: Ivo Wellmann
Composer: Jacob Brass
Wood Sculpting: Katrin Müller
Sandpaintings, Titles: Anna Grebner
Narrator: Christian Baumann
Soundmix, Sound Design: Ivo Wellmann
Grading: Fabian Spang
Producer: Anna Brass

Anna Brass Filmographie
2021 The Watch
Short Documentary / 30 min

2018 From Boche to Buddy – how to overcome hate
non-linear Documentary Internet project: www.boche-buddy.net

2015 Rio in the garbage (broadcaster: ARD alpha)
Reportage / 24 min
• Cinematography: Anna Brass

2013 Leaving Greece (Sender: BR)
Feature Documentary / 79 min
• Kamera: Anna Brass

2011 Ave Maria mit Amparo Mejías, Agata Wozniak
Feature Documentary / 72 min

2010 Voices of the Attic mit Magdalena Hutter
Short Documentary / 19 min

2008 of love off
Short Documentary / 14 min

In 2006 I had a conversation with Marie-Antoinette Pappé, a French resistance fighter and concentration camp survivor. I was fascinated by her sense of humor and her life story. In 2016 (Marie-Antoinette had passed away by that time) I read by chance an article in a German newspaper about a pocket watch that was supposed to return home from Paris to Winsen (a small German community in the north of Hanover). I learned that Madame Pappé had kept this watch as a symbol of her having survived, but wanted to return the watch at the end of her life to its German heirs. Again some years later I found out that the watch still wasn’t returned. I started wondering why and decided to make a film about the watch.

FESTIVALS
Bamberger Kurzfilmtage 01/2023
Mannheim Arts and Film Festival 04/2023

AWARDS
Best Short Documentary (Mannheim Arts and Film Festival 04/2023)
Best Short Documentary (Cine Paris Film Festival 06/2023)
Honorable Mention (Better World Film Festival 09/2023)