Beate Middeke, colour, 76 min., 2008
“If something should happen to me, intentionally or otherwise, then I, Gwendolin, known as Kay, would like something to be done with the things that I have written and left behind.” On 20 September 2001, at the age of 25, the woman who wrote these words would take her own life. Beate Middeke places these words at the start of her film as a kind of bequest.
"We met each other in 1997. I didn’t know her very well, but it was an encounter that left a lasting impression on me due to the conflict in her between self-destruction and the will to live, the longing for a normal life that was always out of her reach, her creative potential, her humour and her sense of responsibility for others. She had an extraordinary presence.
I would learn of Kay’s suicide and the resulting events at the end of September. I follow my instinct and begin to investigate. I enter the room where she last lived and in which she took her life. Numerous thoughts run through my mind: What must it be like to live in public institutions, to eat in canteens, to be surrounded by bland and impersonal modular furniture? What does it mean to live within this system for years?"
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