"Z" - magazine for politics, satire and art

Kanal 4
monthly broadcasted in a time window on Sat 1 und RTL
1993-95

During two years of regular work in an editorial team of more than 20 people for the magazine ‘Z’, we developed our own style in monthly contributions that hovered on the borderline between video art and documentary film, compilation and staging. Using our own and archive material, we created essays without commentary in a highly associative post-production process, in which interviews and experimental sequences, for example, were interwoven in terms of film and content.

The first dogfilm works for ‘Z’ under the heading ‘Reklame’ (Advertising) incorporated the broadcasting slot on private television into the concept. Instead of the expected advertising blocks as an interruption to the magazine, we placed our own spots, which were formally based on advertising strategies, but commented on, analysed or counteracted them in terms of content.

For the work on the monothematic issues of ‘Z’, we worked together with journalists, artists, satirists - on topics that dealt with specific political or socio-cultural events and conditions in Germany, in a way that the work was not current, but nevertheless linked to the events surrounding us.

In the multi-thematic programmes, on the other hand, dogfilm worked largely independently of the editorial team and produced a series of short films in a loose context, which were later compiled under the heading ‘Crisis - Illness - Perspectives’.

In total, around 25 short films between one and seven minutes were made for ‘Z’ in two years.
In 1995/1996, various successor models were developed for ‘Z’, in which dogfilm was partly involved in the conception and as authors of pilot contributions. However, the idea of a critical TV magazine ultimately failed due to the internal development of ‘Kanal 4’, which led to an increasing convergence with the forms and content of commercial private television.

Commercials

1992/93
dogfilm for Kanal 4
color and BW
length: 15 minutes

‘Reklame’ (advertising) is a collection of dogfilm adverts that were developed for the magazine “Z”. Between 20 seconds and 1.30 minutes long, the spots were grouped together in advertising-blocks in the middle of each magazine programme. The themes of the adverts were either related to the topic of the reportage or were developed as free persiflage on commercials and visual advertising strategies.

For a video of this production, please send your enquiry to dog@dogfilm.de

Z-thematic

For the Kanal 4 magazine programme ‘Z-thematic’, dogfilm created its own four-minute collages on the respective topics of the programme, which were placed within the political reports. Eight short films on the political situation in Germany in 1993/94, attempts to take other perspectives than ‘just’ the journalistic one.

"Z" 10/93: IG Farben - Performance of a share

Germany's largest chemical company influenced two world wars through the production of chemical weapons, artificial petrol and poison gas. IG Farben built its own concentration camp and was involved in the production of Zyklon B. Today, the remaining stock corporation is making claims to its former property in the new federal states and the shares are rising...
Textlicher Hinweis und Verlinkung zum Botschaft e.V. Projekt: IG Farben

"Z" 12/93: Espionage

How do the secret services work after the end of the Cold War? The ‘Federal Office for Information Security’ is where the threads between cutting-edge IT and industrial espionage come together. The scandal between Opel and VW is just a symptom of a new era.

"Z" 01/94: Contract workers

The situation of contract workers from the former GDR four years after ‘reunification’. The non-payment of compensation in connection with the Hoyerswerder riots.

"Z" 03/94: Escape borders

Jewish refugees were smuggled across the border in the border triangle of Germany, Switzerland and Austria as early as 1933-45. Today, people from all three countries help asylum seekers to enter the country illegally so that they are not turned away in fast-track procedures at the borders.

"Z" 05/94: Portrait K.-H. Deschner

Church critic Karl-Heinz Deschner has been writing for decades about the Catholic Church's involvement in corruption, torture and oppression as well as its political influence around the world. For him, the clergy is one of the oldest ‘criminal organisations’.

"Z" 07/94: Private security

More and more companies and shop owners are hiring security services to protect their private spaces from uninvited guests. This space is being extended: to the pavement, to shopping streets, to city centres...

"Z" 09/94: Buchenwald

The redesign of the memorial at the former Buchenwald concentration camp: the camp was used by the Red Army as an internment camp for German war criminals after 1945. The GDR memorial is now to be converted into a memorial for all ‘victims of tyranny’. In some cases, victims of National Socialism and their murderers will be commemorated at the same time.

"Z" 11/94: Press and Police

Journalists and police officers do public relations work. Their relationship fluctuates between good cooperation and attacks by the police on critical journalists. How do the media and the state organise the conglomerate ‘public sphere’ today?

For a video of this production, please send your enquiry to dog@dogfilm.de.

Crisis-Illness-Perspectives

1994
dogfilm for Kanal 4
Beta SP
color and BW
length: 28 minutes

A compilation of six short films made over the course of a year for the multi-thematic issues of the magazine ‘Z’. A frame story later compiled from found footage connects the following films:

"Z" 02/94: Cabin fever

‘From the very beginning, the American and Soviet engineers knew that they had to create as much space as possible for their guinea pigs orbiting the earth in order to avert the so-called cabin fever.’

"Z" 04/94: SOAP

People who lead a double life, love and separation, dreams, passion and jealousy. Hours in which everything is decided, incurable illnesses, psychological abysses - life under high tension. The selection of the everyday, finally in the quintessence of four minutes. Images that everyone has seen before. Comments ‘from the street’. Index of people to take notes. Headlines. 14 days from the lives of our ‘neighbours’ between ‘Lindenstraße’ and ‘Dallas’, ‘young and passionate’, ‘rich and beautiful’, Babs and Boris...