Gerhard Meier - Die Ballade vom Schreiben

In his book "Der schnurgerade Kanal" Gerhard Meier describes the writer K. as follows: "He left technical college early, got married and took on a temporary job in a factory - where he got stuck". In Meier's own case it was after dropping out of technical college that he got a job in the lamp factory in Niederbipp. After working in the factory for 33 years, he finally made up his mind to quit and become a writer. His wife started working in a kiosk in order to make a living for them both. The film asks questions about the sort of literature than can spring from a biography like Meier's. It shows the conflict of a provincial citizen who becomes a poet, and it accompanies the writer, who sees life in terms of eyeopening images, on his wanderings trough his immediate and extended home territory, including the island of Rügen and the house of Tolstoi's birth.