The Film

On Monday evening Red Baron followed an invitation to the world premiere of Weltweite Freundschaften, a film describing Freiburg's worldwide friendship with its 12 sister cities.

Many dignitaries were present, including Mayor Dr. Dieter Salomon seeking reelection ten days from now and using the occasion for canvassing by introducing Bülent Gencdemir's film. Bülent traveled for 18 months visiting all 12 cities and collecting more than 200 hours of material; he eventually had to boil down to the usual 90 minutes sequence. Labor of Hercules well done.

In the end, the film got lots of applause, and using time-lapse and slow-motion effects carefully and dosed to the occasion, the spectators had impressive colorful visual moments.

We, the assembled board members of the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft, had mainly been waiting for the sequence about Madison and were - as I collected the impressions afterward over a glass of sparkling wine generously offered by the city authorities - disappointed.

Performing a German stagecoach song: Hoch auf dem gelben Wagen.

My reaction was that there were too few spectacular pictures of the beauties of our sister city Madison and too much talking, although we listened to some music in the form of a German folk song. Too sad.

Madison's mayor,

Madison Freiburg Sister City Committee's chairman,

and honor to this Mayor of Freiburg who started it all.

All pictures are ©Bülent Gencdemir/Südfilm

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