Helmut Kohl is a great man. Helmut Kohl has achieved a lot for the Federal Republic. Helmut Kohl brought unity to Germany. But what did the unity bring to Helmut Kohl? In Germany there are a number of men who bear this name. For example in Wolfen: Helmut Kohl lost everything from back then, but it could have been even worse. The GDR pensioner says goodbye to his old home. Or in Crimmitschau: Things haven’t been bad for Helmut Kohl since reunification, but everything used to be better. The innkeeper may have changed the system, but not the attitude. Helmut Kohl in Lorscheid says: Everything is OK in Germany, but actually everything could be better. The hard-working Westerner feels cheated out of the fruits of his labor. Helmut Kohl from Duisburg is different: he has mastered everything in life, only in the other Germany something went wrong recently. The architect, righteous, noble and good, loses face in the East. And then to Heidelberg: Helmut Kohl still thinks everything is good, but things will soon end badly for Germany. The German Pole sees youth and foreigners ruining his beloved fatherland.

The photographer and filmmaker Burkhard von Harder came up with the idea of ​​looking for and photographing Helmut Kohl’s namesake for a book through the biography I Wanted Germany’s Unity by Helmut Kohl. He finds around 100 and sends out disposable cameras asking them to record themselves. He ultimately makes closer contact with 16 protagonists. He invites the director Jean Boué to work together on this basis to develop a concept for a film that runs across Germany, somewhere between blooming landscapes and lost visions. Six of the men, aged between 36 and 85, are portrayed in the film. In interviews and using objects and places, they are asked about their fate since 1989. How the change changed their lives, what happened to their family, how Easterners see the West and vice versa.

Director: Jean Boué
Assistant: Antje Boehmert
Script: Jean Boué
Camera: Uli Fischer
Editing: Thomas Wellmann
Music: Eike Hosenfeld, Moritz Denis, Tim Stanzel
Sound: Timo Selengia
Editorial Staff: Beate Schönfeldt, Rolf Bergmann
Production lead: Gunter Hanfgarn, Antje Boehmert
Production: Gunter Hanfgarn
Station: MDR, RBB
Funding: Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg

DOK Leipzig, 2009
Achtung Berlin, 2010