The only early film by Gernot Eigler to have survived, ASOZIALE was made in 1970 as part of the “Armut in Deutschand” (Poverty in Germany) TV series of the SWF network. Eigler, a Mannheim-born doctor, psychiatrist and specialist in occupational health was encouraged to make provocative, experimental films via his friendships and connections around the film studio at the Technical University of Aachen and the Cologne XScreen group. During breaks from work, Gernot Eigler continued to make films for ZDF and SWF until the mid-1980s. The fact that ASOZIALE has been preserved while the rest of Gernot Eigler’s early works must be considered lost is due to the fact that the film was shown at the Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 1971 and awarded a prize there by the jury of the Filmothek der Jugend. After the festival, a copy remained in the archive at Oberhausen.
