1970. An entire small town is being built for the Summer Olympics in Munich. Including a subway station, a stadium, a swimming pool, a residential area, and the largest shopping mall in Europe at the time – the Olympia shopping mall. Many migrant workers, so-called “guest workers”, work on the construction site.
2016. Nine people are murdered in a right-wing terrorist attack at the Olympia shopping mall in Munich. All the victims have a migrant background.
1982. Sohrab Shahid Saless, an Iranian director, shoots a film in West-Germany as a response to the rapid increase in racism. The characters in the film walk past houses, walls and facades smeared with far-right slogans. The colors flicker shrilly and fade again.
“in retrospect” is an attempt to look back and link a space with its history.

FESTIVALS
75. BERLINALE Shorts Competition, Germany
56. VISIONS DU RÉEL Int. Medium Length and Shortfilm Competition, Switzerland
54. NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS Official Selection, USA
24. DOXA Int. Short Documentary Competition, Canada
22. VIENNA SHORTS Int. Competition, Austria

PRESS

Less nihilistic, but just as uncompromising in its view of modern society, is Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko’s documentary In Retrospect (Germany). A shopping mall built by migrants for the 1972 Munich Olympics becomes the site of a racist shooting in 2016 as the film uses archive footage to muse on the connection between the present and the past. It is a powerful evocation of cycles of violence and hatred that much of society is unable to break.
–Laurence Boyce for CINEUROPA

In Retrospect resonates powerfully in an era of rising extremism, as Western societies increasingly turn toward border closures and the scapegoating of foreigners.

[…] But this masterfully executed cinematic essay, by fixing its gaze on a single place and invoking its history, reminds us that certain truths remain inscribed in its very foundations: xenophobia and racism seem as immovable as the walls of Olympia.
–Read Full Review by Aurelie Geron for Film Fest Report

Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluknko deliver a powerful, lucid and deeply moving essay on memory, structural racism and the untold history of migration in Germany.

[…]

What makes In Retrospect so relevant is its ability to intertwine history, cinema and politics from a refined and sensitive aesthetic approach. In times when the rise of xenophobic parties threatens to rewrite the German present, this short film functions as an act of resistance to face what society would prefer to forget. The history of migration is not a footer in German history; it is its backbone. In Retrospect makes it painfully clear, with a look that combines denunciation and compassion, memory and criticism.
–Read Full Review by Mauro Lukasievicz for CALIGARI (in Spanish)

The excellent In Retrospect uses the construction of the Olympia Shopping Mall — once the biggest in Europe — as a metaphor for Germany’s failed integration at large.
–Read Full Review by Redmond Bacon for Journey into cinema

“And some of the questions that arose in the film of Shahid Saless also resonated with us,” Zhluktenko continues. “Where should we live or how should we fight? Or what is our position and stance right now as migrants here in Germany? What can we do if it really gets so bad that we have to leave?”

“One fourth of German society have a migrant background,” Asadi Faezi asserts. “So I think also this film talks to a lot of people who may ask themselves this question. In the next years, what do we do within the society that we shaped and that we are an integral part of?”
–Read Full Interview by Nick Cunningham with Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko for Business Doc Europe

“We really enjoy working with the short form, as it allows us to take risks and experiment. In a short film you can focus on a very small detail, strike a chord and let the vibration fade out afterwards. It is always a chance to find a new approach towards cinematic language.”
–Read Full Interview with Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko on the Berlinale Shorts Blog.

directors, writers, producers, editors | Daniel Asadi Faezi & Mila Zhluktenko
cinematographer | Tobias Blickle
sound recordist & dramaturgical consultant | Kristina Kilian
music | Hora Lunga

re-recording mixer, sounddesign | Andrew Mottl
color grading | Nicholas Coleman – OASYS Digital
title design | Paul Rutrecht

translation | Isabelle Heinemann
filmstock | Kodak
scan | Yves Dujardin
project consultant | Dr. Anke Hoffsten
festival distribution | Square Eyes

in retrospect (orig. title: rückblickend betrachtet)

2025 |  14 minutes | experimental documentary | 35mm, digital | DCP 5.1 |  German with English subtitles

© Daniel Asadi Faezi | Mila Zhluktenko

for screening requests please get in touch with info@squareeyesfilm.com