In the early 1990's, I was pottering through Berlin looking for an old, abandoned cinema. I was working then as a projectionist for a large company but I had somehow got it into my head that I should open my own cinema. I became so fixated with this idea that I could barely sleep at nights. It was the time immediately after the fall of the wall, a time when everything seemed possible, when Berlin was still covered in the scars of separation and there was something new to discover every day in the rundown Eastern area. My search lasted two years and finally, in the spring of 1994, I opened a cinema at Alexanderplatz with two friends.

To this day, I can still recall the euphoria with which I fought for every audience member and how happy I was when I managed to fill the auditorium and was able to observe the people there, how they came to my very own cinema and were moved to tears and laughter there. The cinema still exists but business is poor. Now people have their own enormous televisions and watch films on DVD. Programme cinema as we intended it is now a relict of the past.

And so the idea came to me of creating a monument to those idealists still standing bravely behind their stone age projectors. I wanted to make a final journey into the furthest corners of the earth in order to find cinemamakers who still care about films and audiences and whose cinemas are living rooms and social meeting points. I selected locations in which lent themselves well to telling stories about the culture of living together in that particular country, somewhere where public and cinemamakers engaged with one another. I wanted, ultimately, to convey something of the magic of cinema, a quality that - for me at least - it will always have.

Choice of location was narrowed down to India, Burkina Faso, America and North Korea, principally because these countries are united in their having a strong cinema culture and a tradition of showing films with which people there can readily identify. With its mass audiences and carnival atmosphere, India provides a tremendous sense of energy, an elemental cinematic experience for me; Burkina Faso is regarded as one of the poorest countries in the world and yet people there stream into the cinemas, giving their last few Francs for a couple of hours worth of distraction.

And there is also a kind of pioneer spirit at large, as, for the first time, cinemas can be privately operated, a fact which motivates the cinema-makers even more strongly to try to get "bums on seats". In America, our stories there take place in the "middle of nowhere" and for that reason the only cinema for miles around also serves as a social station and gossip generator. In North Korea, epic propaganda battles are fought: an utterly bizarre film culture flourishes here, operating in splendid isolation, cut off from any images from outside its territory and whose explicit aim is to influence the life, loves and thoughts of people there.

But what would all these places be without their chief protagonists, such as the extremely charming young ANUP from Maharashtra in India, who has breathed new life into his father's cinema tent and whose ability to sniff out the film hits of any given season has made him a lot of money. Anup leads a life caught between business, old traditions and his own visions. In his cinema, the only films which are successful are those which deal with local problems - even "Titanic" failed to find an audience in these arid surroundings. There was simply too much water in the film, beyond the imaginations of the simple people who live here.

In Africa, I met three wonderful young men who have known each other since kindergarten. Their fearlessness in the face of risk and their enthusiasm for film reminded me of my own story, back in the days of the newly reborn Berlin, where anything seemed possible. I was thrilled by the euphoria which drove all of them to take on board an adventure, at how they were prepared to risk their private lives, just to be able to say that they had created something of their own, under their own steam. I suddenly had the feeling that I had found another image of Africa, one not dominated by poverty and hunger but instead by a kind of spiritual uprising and passion, by the idea of a self-determined life.

A woman who came to remind me somewhat of my own mother was Penny Tefertiller from Wyoming. A single parent with unpleasant memories of marriage who pours herself into her work and revs up the projectors three times a week in order to give the citizens of Big Piney/Marbleton a sense of community. The counter in her cinema is a help desk and place to share worries. Penny is selfless, seeing herself as simply a part of the community for which she lives. She seems vulnerable, in spite of her strength - one reason why I grew so fond of this woman who gives so much but ultimately forgets to keep a little back for herself.

The North Korean Hang Jong Sil threw me her phenomenal smile even as I saw her appear around the corner for the first time. I knew that I could overcome any obstacles set in my way with the help of that smile. All the staging and the affectation around us could be swept away with a single bat of Mrs Hang's eyelids. With her, I fought to be able to show a little humanity behind the facade of steely discipline. My goal was to lay bare how staged the everyday is there, with its rigid, tableau-like images and, simultaneously, to find a very personal point of entry to my main figure. And I immediately sensed that cinema is immensely powerful here, in its own very bizarre way. I therefore tried to play with different levels of reality.

My main characters represent for me the key into often unknown worlds. It was my wish to follow things from their perspective and the opportunity to look at reality through their eyes was a dramatic experience for me. For me, it is all about the moments of truth, the power that a single second can have and life affirming humour. I am searching for people who can condense their lives into a single intense moment in front of the camera, who can become the stars of their own lives and thereby make the way clear for providing a strongly emotional entry point.

I allow myself to be inspired by the pre-existing reality, from the energy and strength that shines from the faces of my main figures. The energy with which they allow me to participate in their lives dictates the path of my storytelling. The tale told can never be a complete one, of course. I attempt to find their essence, a common denominator, one which brings together people looking for happiness, regardless of culture or nationality. This is the common theme of all my films and is the reason why I have brought my COMRADES IN DREAMS together for a long journey.

Director's CV

Uli Gaulke was born 1968 in Schwerin, Germany. After initially studying Physics and Information Technology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, he switched to Theatre Science Studies at the Freie Universität in Berlin. He also worked as a projectionist at the Berlin cinemas INTERNATIONAL, ARSENAL, FAF, amongst others. Uli Gaulke is also co-founder of the Balasz Cinema, situated at the heart of Berlin: Alexanderplatz. He commenced his studies in Film Direction at the "Konrad Wolf" Film School in Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1995.

Previous films include "HAVANNA, MI AMOR" (2000) which won a string of prestigious awards, including the Lola Award (the German equivalent to the Oscar) for Best Documentary and the Joris-Ivens-Award at Cinema du Reel in Paris. The film was released theatrically in several countries and was one of the most successful documentaries of its time. He also directed "MARRY ME" (2003) (co-director Jeannette Eggert), which premiered at the Berlinale (Forum), was released theatrically in Germany and travelled to a lot of international festivals. His most recent work is a TV mini series (5x25 min) about the erection of an IKEA super store, commissioned by Arte.