We Need Hobbies

In his film We Need Hobbies, the German director Matthias Luthardt follows three couples in the summer of 2003 who are active as video amateurs for the “open channel” of a local TV station. They each make their own programme, and these are entitled “Cooking and Baking With Adèle,” “Herman's Hyde Park” and “Keep it Country.” The grimness with which they try to give their routine lives meaning through these shows produces a tragicomic effect. The moaning and groaning that is almost continually audible on the soundtrack through the pin microphones, the mutual bickering about details and the jeremiads about the heat wave further underline this. Luthardt filmed the couples both during preparations for their shows and in their daily lives. Adèle's statement that “a hobby should remain a hobby and not cause any stress” seems to be inconsistent with the scenes that Luthardt captured. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)