The approximately 160 kilometres between the German-German border of Helmstedt-Marienborn in Lower Saxony and West Berlin were always just as rough. From 1975 to 1989 I travelled along this well-known transport route at least three or four times a year. It was worth it. West Berlin during the Cold War was the most culturally dramatic and intellectually captivating city I had ever experienced. The tension between local politics and the not always well-thought-out prompting from the government in distant Bonn, together with the chilly confrontation between the Great Powers in this frontier city, provided in many respects fertile ground for political initiatives that could either sustain or break it. There were intense debates without blinders here; an avant-garde culture blossomed, including in women’s film.

Travelling this route by car, my mode of transport, was always an experience of a strong symbolic nature, something that taking a plane, where you simply drop down, ...