Sesame Street

The editors we worked with had ideology on the brain; we had studied – well, let's call it didactics ourselves. In addition, the American producers had a very strict policy, so that one had to put an incredible amount of work into making a really tiny film, which had to be inexpensive as well.

I can remember one film about dredgers and another about containers. This amazing thing happened – we were at the docks in Hamburg, and the containers were caught up by a fierce storm and hurled through the air. We were astonished but it wasn't our job to film it. As though children couldn't have learned something from that as well.

But, no – we saw it, we were filmmakers, but we couldn't notice it and that was that. At that point I lost interest. And indeed, others proved to be much sharper than Harun or me and built whole empires on their Sesame Street filmettes.

(Hartmut Bitomsky, 1993)

Original title Sesamstrasse Director, scriptwriter Hartmut Bitomsky, Harun Farocki Cinematographer Carlos Bustamante Sound Hans Beringer Editor Rolf Basedow Production Larabel Film Harun Farocki, Berlin-West, Format 16mm, col., 1:1,37

Single TitlesTransport 1 (length: 3 min.) Transport 2 (3 min., first broadcast: 23.01.1973), Container 1 (3 min.); Container 2 (3 min., 12.11.74); Sägen (2,5 min., 10.05.73); Hammer (2,5 min., 19.06.73); Der Weg des Geldes (2,75 min., 27.09.73); Baggerlied (3,5 min., 01.10.73); Dock (2,5 min., 21.05.73); Schiffsentladung (3 min.)