The title of this short film directed by Hansjürgen (Jason) Pohland (born in 1934) is a contraction of two charitable projects financed by the “Hilfswerk Berlin” raffle: on the one hand, “Kinderluftbrücke” (an airlift for children) whose name refers to the airlift that supplied the town in 1948 when Berlin was blockaded by the Russians; on the other “Platz an der Sonne” (a place in the sun) that from 1957 followed on from the first project. During the summer holidays, these actions offered the children of West Berlin stays in host families in the Federal Republic of Germany.  It was the US Air Force that provided air transport.  This social initiative assumed a certain political nature:  at the height of the cold war, the children of West Berlin discovered the nation to which they belonged. Brücke zur Sonne was also produced thanks to Coca-Cola’s financial support that Pohland himself appealed to.

The film focuses on two phases and relies on both the form as the content, on the idea of contrast.  First of all Pohland shows Berlin through a succession of stills.  The children are prisoners of the town but also of the film director’s frame.  Even when climbing the wire fence or making a bridge over a puddle, escaping is impossible.  Then Pohland films the German countryside.  Each shot is in motion and suggests a pastoral escape so needed by the children.

By also playing on the encounter between the image and the voice off, Pohland experiences the cinematic form.  It was by starting off making short films like this one that he earned his stripes as a film director and was able to take part in the German festival of Oberhausen, dedicated to this genre.  With 25 other young directors or film professionals he signed the Oberhausen manifesto in 1962, introduced by Haro Senft (born in 1928). For this generation, the short film represented “the school and the experimental field for the feature length film”.  The critical success of their short works showed that they were “speaking a new cinematographic language” allowing them to extol the renewal of German cinema.