browseFrom Marks & Spencer To Marx & Engels (1988)
57 mins, 16mm
Colour/optical
Documentary
Growing out of a collaboration with DEFA, the East German film organisation, who made From Marx & Engels to Marks & Spencer on Tyneside, the film explores daily life in the East German shipbuilding and fishing town of Rostock and the questions facing the filmmakers as they documented the community. On location, Amber would mysteriously find shops bursting with produce, a tendency it counteracted by mysteriously time-consuming set-ups that allowed the shelves to empty.
Amber rarely makes films outside the North of England; so much of what it has documented has disappeared: the group holds itself at least partly responsible for the collapse of East Germany not long after the film was completed. Recent research by Tobias Herschorf of Northumbria University has sadly failed to uncover any Stasi files on Amber or the members involved in making the film.
AMBER FILMS
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration with financial assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television.