Sleeping Rough

Sleeping rough was shot during the summer of 2001 among a group of homeless men and women in downtown Hamburg after six months of ethnographic fieldwork.

While the homeless are often represented as outcasts of society, this film shows the construction of intricate social networks with alliances and sanctions not unlike those of the working and consuming public that occupies Hamburg ’s central business district during daytime.

The group provides the matrix through which individuals in varying stages of liminality can find solace and support. The camera offers a privileged view of daily routines and work as well as leisure time, which is spent socialising on a public square. Intimately and with sometimes disenchanted frankness the protagonists reflect on the circumstances of their situation between romance and tragedy, past disappointments and future ambitions.

Jochen Becker

Jochen Becker, born 1975, studied Cultural and Visual Anthropology in Hamburg and Philadelphia . He works as TV Journalist for German Public Television (NDR, ARD) in Hamburg .

Martin Gruber

Born: 9. 11. 1968 in Munich / Germany

MA in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths College London 2003

Magister in Social & Cultural Anthropology at Hamburg University 2005

Currently working as a freelance researcher and filmmaker as well as teaching anthropological film seminars and preparing a PhD project.

Films:

Marabout (2000)

sleeping rough (2002)

Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival 2002

Astra Film Fest, Sibiu / Romania 2002

Beeld voor Beeld Festival, Amsterdam 2003

RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film, Durham 2003

Cultivating Death (2003)

NAFA Film Festival, Tartu / Estonia 2004

Göttingen International Film Festival 2004

Münster Ethno-Film-Festival 2004

Beeld Voor Beeld Festival, Amsterdam 2004

ASTRA Filmfest, Sibiu / Romania 2004

SALT Experimental Film Night, 291 Gallery in London 2004

XIII International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade 2004

Anthropology Day at the British Museum, London 2004

Selected for:

Moscow International Visual Anthropology Film Festival 2006