Divine Location

Dortmund is a city in the Ruhr region, one of Europe's largest industrial centers. Until April 2001, this was one of the most important locations for heavy industry in the world. On the enormous site of the former Phoenix-Ost steelworks a luxury housing development has now been constructed around a newly created, artificial lake: Lake Phoenix. The development includes a marina and piazza. The descriptions provided for this innovative venture make no mention of hard work, steelworks, environmental pollution or noise. The keywords now are leisure time and relaxation, service society and Mediterranean flair. But how should one proceed when the surrounding working-class neighborhood has become a ghetto, decimated by unemployment because of the closure of the steelworks?

It took five years for the steelworks to make way for the lake. Filmmakers Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken followed planners and residents, visionaries and skeptics with their cameras for the entire duration of the project. We meet locals, attend client meetings and accompany new residents. We watch as they all become winners or losers in the game called social progress. A light and often absurdly comic film about the transition from an industrial to a leisure society.