The Empty Center

Steyerls film traces the impact of an influx of transnational companies on the city dwellers of Berlin in postreunification Germany The effect of the changing economy and politics on the city and its inhabitants is echoed through their physical relocation to its outer edges In 1990 squatters proclaim a socialist republic on the death strip Eight years later the new headquarters of Mercedes Benz are built in the same location The film makes use of slow superimpositions to uncover a journey across changing architectural and cultural boundaries The Empty Centre tries to give a voice and a history to those who continue to be marginalised by the simultaneous dismantling and reconstruction of the borders which they are trying to cross