Hansjürgen (Jason) Pohland (born in 1934) belongs to a generation of young film directors who at the beginning of the 1960' wanted a renewal of German film, the production of which was inexorably crumbling. Since creating a production company in 1955 at the age of 21, Pohland worked on short films. In 1962 he signed the Oberhausen manifesto with 25 others &ndash among them Haro Senft (born in 1928), Alexander Kluge (born in 1932) or Edgar Reitz (born in 1932) advocating the advent of a new cinematographic language.

Schatten is an example of artistic embellishment and aesthetic experimentation demanded by this generation. Like Berlin, Symphony Of A Great City (1927) by Walter Ruttmann (1887-1941) or The Man With The Movie Camera (1929) by Dziga Vertov (1896-1954), Pohland' urban images are set to music, representing a genuine cinematic symphony. The architecture, the geometry, the light and the activity of the city are unveiled to us by a montage of mainly still shots, whose variations are given rhythm by the playful jazz of Manfred Burzlaff. The framing exploits the town' geometry and movement; the work of Pohland highlights the artificial, constructed and mechanical nature of this environment. Humanity is not to be outdone; the inhabitants move around, play and get together.

But Pohland is not only interested in the shadows of Berlin! Thereby he captures an ephemeral and indirect reality. It' up to the spectator to imagine the elements that come between the sun and the filmed surfaces, which play the role of genuine screens on which life in Berlin is screened. Each of Pohland' images is a metaphorical suggestion of the cinematographic device.

Awarded several prizes, Schatten is the only German film to take part in the Biennial of Venice in 1961. Pohland presented his entire film production to the Deutsche Kinemathek in the 1970'.