About the film.

"Die chthonische Stadt / Chthonian City" is about one of the world's largest artificial underground environments, the catacombs under Odessa (UA). The labyrinth is as old as the city and as big as the city with a total length of proposed 2000 km. Relicts from quite every movement overground have their reflection, have left traces underground as in the collective unconscious: traces of the mine workers' lives, of war, revolution, of smugglers and of visitors in the postsoviet time.
This meant researching within a heterogenic group of people who experience(d) the place; amongst them a geologist, an archeologist, several hobby cave climbers, an eyewitness from 2nd WW, a sociologist. Their voices lead through the film and tell aboutparalell realities of life in the chthonian city, a city under the city, which has no function but a lot of meanings.

Cordially i would like to thank DAAD for funding the project as well as guides and friends who helped realizing the project and led me through the labyrinth under Odessa. They are: Zhenja Karteljan, Prof. K.K. Pronin (ONU), Dr. A. Krasnozhon, Ruslan Smeshshuk (ATV), Dmitrij Dokunov (ATV), Aleksandr Samorukov, Sergej Saltison, Prof. Shevshshuk (ONU), Zhenja Romanov, Zhenja Mishshenko, I.O.Grek, Aleksandr Chubar, and everybody else involved from club Poisk.