It all began in 1985 with a Hi-8 camera and two camcorders in the living room. (All beginnings are difficult!). The great walkout of the metal workers is the gateway to the trade union area of education, followed by films about and for unemployed and about walkouts in the German unions of public workers and metal.
From 1987 on we first evolved into specialists of the Soviet union: first TV-productions in the USSR, in part also as long term documentaries about work and life conditions, fears and hopes of the people during political and economical changes, using the example of individual metallurgy and automobile plants in Russia, Belarus and Latvia.
Since the end of the eighties, Kern Filmproduktion has been concenrating on documentaries and background reports about the consequences of the beginning disintegration of the USSR. Subjects of interest are topics like the Russian right wing radicalism/the emigration of Russian jews to Israel/ Lithuania's road to independence; national conflicts in the baltic states; the situation of Jews in Lithuania/ Changes in the Russian Kaliningrad, the former Königsberg, e.g. through the settlement of Russians of German origin, respectively the engagement of German right wing radicals in this area, and so on. From 1995 onwards Kern Filmproduktion has been focusing on what is going on at home: The decision of the Conference of Interior Ministers to deport Bosnian refugees is the starting point of a seven year documentary about the fate of two families of war refugees that had fled to Germany, followed by films about stressed out children and a long term documentary about children starting school in the St. Georg, and area around Hamburg's main station. And last but not least, „water“ and the privatization of public services have become one of our topics. (see current films)