Originally from Vienna, Austrian artist Gerda Leopold casts the analytic eye of the foreigner on post-‘89 Germany in order to investigate the relationship between history and its residue in the imaginary. Mauer is a short film that tackles this issue at point blank: it shows a conversation between a young painter, an older house carer and a photographer in her 40s who gather in a Berlin Hinterhof whose wall the painter has painted white. This discussion evolves around the historical amnesia (the older woman), the fragility of memory (the photographer) and how to do justice to these when nothing but imagination is left of the historical fact (the painter).

Gerda Leopold moved to West Berlin in 1979. During the Eighties the Berlin Wall served as a backdrop for all sorts of art events: the Wall became a film screen, a backdrop for concerts, a massive canvas, an expressive platform for artists, Berliners and tourists.  This is reflected in the film projection. Gerda Leopold built a special filmbox, in which the film is played directly on (a photograph of) the Berlin Wall.