The Zone (Zonen)

Best Short Film, Karlovy Vary 2003

Story: The world-class photographer Esaias Baitel was born in Trelleborg, Sweden in 1949, where his father arrived in 1945 from a camp in Lübeck. His mother fled from Lithuania during the war.

In the 1970’s Baitel lived in France in the Parisian suburb Aubervilliers. This was a neighbourhood where motor bikes, rock and roll and swastikas go hand in hand. In order to get close to these ”Rockers” and to be able to take pictures Esaias had to tell them that he was a Swede of Walloon origin. To introduce himself as a Jew in this environment would not have been an option.

Baitels photos of the ”Rockers” do not show lost or mislead youths but entire families and small children.

Baitel documented in the 1970’s something that later was to erupt throughout Europe: the different forms and shapes of neo nazism.