Georg Stefan Troller

Troller gave his extensive archive to the Kinemathek in 2010, which has been enriched several times in the interim. It permits deep insights into his interesting working methods – how he found his subjects; how he prepared and conducted his talks and interviews. Troller has never been interested in opinions, but rather in the inner nature of human beings, their beaking points and doubts. He was driven by self-confrontation and the questions: “How do you survive, and how do other people cope with life?” The archival collection reflects nearly a cenury of cultural, television and contemporary history, and an unusual history of emigration: Troller first “outed” himself as a Jew in the 1980s. He claimed that he did not want to be reduced to “being Jewish” and to being seen by the Germans as a victim. Extensive production records form the basis of the archive – for instance, on his award-winning ‘Personenbeschreibung: Ron Kovic – Warum verschwindest Du nicht?’ (1977), on the reportage ‘Stan Rivkin ‒ Der letzte Kopfgeldjäger’ (1985) and about the much-discussed trilogy that he co-wrote with Axel Corti ‘Wohin und zurück’ (1982‒85, directed by Axel Corti), in which he deals with his own emigration and the sense of loss he felt when returning to Europe. Scripts and screenplays for television and cinematic works, research materials, colour slides and reviews, augmented by numerous scene, production and work photos (including those of long-year members of his crew, such as the film editor Elfie Kreiter and the cameraman Carl F. Hutterer) complete the collection, as do unpublished literary works and a photo album showing Troller’s workspace in his apartment in Paris. (Text: Gerlinde Waz)