Rüsselsheim in the 1980s: Among stuffy Opel workers’ romanticism and aircraft noise, a provocative subculture is developing. Its congenial protagonist is the young performance artist and filmmaker Martin Kirchberger. Through bizarre actions between Fluxus and Dada, he and his friends mix up the “Autostadt”: They record themselves on burning chairs and shoot strange fictional documentaries – long before the genre “Mockumentary” is invented. Yet, on the verge of their big breakthrough, disaster strikes. On the final shooting day for their satirical anti-war film “Bunkerlow”, in 1991, their airplane crashes. 28 people die. 25 years after this grave disaster in German film history, Kirchberger’s former companion Thomas Frickel processes the trauma and lets the legendary Rüsselsheim artist groups around “Kirchi” come back to life once again. 

Animation: Lutz Garmsen

“Wunder der Wirklichkeit” was awarded with the Hessen Film Prize 2017 in the category „Documentary Film“. The jury’s rationale states: „The documentary impressively masters the tightropewalk between humor – the depiction of satirical content – and tragedy – the descriptions of the mournful accident by survivors. [...] ‚Wunder der Wirklichkeit’ is an outstanding, enthralling tribute to Thomas Frickel’s friend Martin Kirchberger and the group „Cinema Concetta“ – and a very touching voyage of discovery to the twilight zone between the Invented and reality." – Hessenfilm.de

„[...] a film that, with a complete lack of voyeurism, shows how people deal with a tragedy ... a loving tribute to an artist and his friends, whose lives ended much too soon.“ – hessenschau.de