The Debtors, 16’30”, 2008, shooting format 16mm

The Debtors is a short film that takes as its starting point Bertholt Brecht’s book Flüchtlingsgespräche (Conversations in Exile), set in a restaurant at Helsinki central railway station. The film is shot in the same place, and consists of five episodic dialogues in which the conversations between two exiled men in Brecht’s book are exchanged for conversations between two women. Stuck repeating the same borrowed sentences and engaging in (self-)regulated acts of gambling, the women lend a premise for the excavation of the space itself and initiate open-ended narratives on the nature of choice, nationality and risk.

Produced with the support of AVEK (The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture, Finland), The Finnish Arts Council and Baltic Art Centre, Sweden.

Watch The Debtors here.