About

bt-medienproduktion stands for Barbara Trottnow and her films - mostly documentaries for which she is also the author and director. She always works with experienced camera operators and editors, such as Rüdiger Kortz and Armin Riegel.

After studying social sciences at the University of Göttingen and a traineeship at Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt, Barbara Trottnow first worked as an editor for HR and as an author for ZDF and NDR. She later became an independent producer.

The focus of her work in recent years has been migration, with Türkiye as a frequent location. For Deutsch aus Liebe she filmed in Balıkesir in western Türkiye. At a language school there she met the three women whom she and her camera team accompanied for a year and a half on their way from Türkiye to Germany. The women attend a German course because they want to marry a Turkish man living in Germany. The men's families had once come to Germany as guest workers.

For her film Eduard Zuckmayer – A Musician in Türkiye she filmed in Ankara, but also in Mainz and Nackenheim. Eduard Zuckmayer went to Türkiye in 1936 - a migration in the opposite direction.

Emine aus Incesu tells the story of Emine, who came to Germany at the age of 18 as one of the first female guest workers. For the shoot, Barbara Trottnow travelled with her team to the Turkish village of Incesu, where Emine grew up. Environmental protection is at the heart of the film Kadir – the Cotton Farmer, made in the Dalyan region, where organic cotton is grown for a German textile producer - a bad deal for the farmers. Dalyan is also where the portrait of Kaptan June, an English environmentalist living there, was made. For the film Purple – Dyeing at a Snail's Pace Barbara Trottnow was able to film off the coast of Mexico how the dye purple is won from sea snails.

Natural dyes and the preservation of ancient craft techniques are another thematic focus in Barbara Trottnow's films. In the film about the DOBAG project in Turkish villages, Carpet Secrets, she shows how traditional carpets are knotted by a women's cooperative. This focus continues in the project Naturfarben with the two new DVD series Colours as bright as nature and Purple rediscovered.

She also turns to the subject of women with her adaptation of a story by Anna Seghers: Katharina, or: the art of finding work. For this film Barbara Trottnow staged elaborate dramatic scenes in Mainz, the birthplace of Anna Seghers. They are interwoven with documentary passages, for which she visited, among other places, the family's former flat in Parisian exile together with Anna Seghers' son.

All films can be lent to cinemas and other organisers for public screenings. The documentaries always spark lively discussions afterwards - on marriage migration, labour migration, or the conflict between environmental protection and tourism. So it was after the Turkish premiere of Eduard Zuckmayer – A Musician in Türkiye at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul in March 2016.

All films are available on DVD, Blu-ray and DCP in various language versions. They can be ordered directly from bt-medienproduktion; six films can also be streamed right here. The three films on migration and integration work well as a series. Further information and suggestions can be found in the information sheet (PDF).