The Center

Where is the geographic middle of Europe situated? A dozen of places, widespread in a circumference of 2.000 kilometres, claim to be these middle. The Polish director Stanislaw Mucha (“Absolut Warhola”, 2001) goes on an entertaining, tragicomical journey across the continent, from Germany to the Ukraine. We meet German garden gnomes, Japanese tourists, socialistic monuments – and innumerable memorial stones, everywhere, labelled, that right here was the centre of Europe. Mucha manages to create touching and authentic short portraits. Like casual meetings appear his talks with the people at work, in the street, in their flats. Last but not least “The middle” is an introduction to the Eastern world, a world of poverty – and of humour. People have their say with their rage, their trouble or their joy at the new Europe. “The middle” arouses the curiosity about the people of Europe.