Berlinale 2025: In Retrospect (dirs. Daniel Asadi Faezi & Mila Zhluktenko) | Review
Exploring the history of an everyday place, Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko craft a collage that echoes the past while exposing the enduring realities of racism and xenophobia in German society.
The Olympia shopping center was built in the early 1970s in Munich. At the time the largest mall in Europe, it was designed to showcase Germany’s power and modernity as the country hosted the Summer Olympics in 1972. The sheer scale of the construction project required a massive workforce, drawing in Gastarbeiter—“guest workers” from neighboring countries such as Turkey, Italy, and the former Yugoslavia. Yet, despite their designation as guests, these workers were never truly welcomed by German society. Struggling against underlying racism and xenophobia, their integration was fraught with tensions, a rift that has never fully healed—an unsettling truth laid bare by the 2016 mass shooting, in which several people of immigrant backgrounds were targeted at the Olympia shopping center.
In In Retrospect (Rückblickend betrachtet), Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko retrace the complex and painful history of this space. By focusing on a single location, they illuminate a broader issue that runs through German society as a whole. The short documentary had its world premiere at the 75th Berlinale in 2025.
Formally, the film alternates between static shots of the shopping center as it stands today and archival footage of the Olympia’s construction, as well as images of the area under police lockdown following the 2016 attack. The filmmakers also intersperse excerpts from a 1982 film by Sohrab Shahid Saless, which exposed the ostracization of immigrants in West Germany.
In Retrospect resonates powerfully in an era of rising extremism, as Western societies increasingly turn toward border closures and the scapegoating of foreigners. This ideology conveniently forgets that immigration was once encouraged to fill postwar labor shortages, facilitating reconstruction and the rise of mass consumption. Without the hard labor and sacrifices of these uprooted workers, the urban landscapes of today would look drastically different—starting with Olympia itself, a thriving commercial hub that remains vital to the local economy. As the film’s final scene suggests, the relentless rhythm of consumer society may cause us to forget essential social realities over time. But this masterfully executed cinematic essay, by fixing its gaze on a single place and invoking its history, reminds us that certain truths remain inscribed in its very foundations: xenophobia and racism seem as immovable as the walls of Olympia.
Film Fest Report is an accredited media at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.
