Sonoma State University’s German Club presented the showing of their fifth film in their German Film Series on April 11, at 7:15 p.m. in Darwin Hall.  

“Vier Minuten,” directed by Chris Kraus, is about an elder named Frau Traude Krueger who gives piano classes in a prison. After hearing Jenny Von Loeben play piano, she offers to help her win a competition. Jenny then has four minutes of glory and recognition of her talent, hence the title of the film “Four Minutes.”

The German film series and the German club as a whole, serve as an outlet for students interested in connecting with their community and learning about German language and culture. 

All films are affiliated with the Sonoma State University German language and culture courses and are picked collectively by German club members. All films are played in German with English subtitles every other Thursday. After each showing students engage in an in-depth discussion of the film. 

Kaffeestunde is the German Club’s weekly meeting, where students engage in informal German conversation led by native speaker and Fulbright foreign language teaching assistant, Nathan Gerdes. All students are welcome and is an opportunity to meet new people and pick up the German language.

Michaela M. Grobbel, Department Chair, Professor of German, and German Program Coordinator has been running the German program for years. Students express the importance of keeping the club running and how instrumental cultural and language clubs and courses are. 

Liza Schoen, fourth-year communication and media studies major and treasurer of the German club, said students need to continue to support language learning classes because “they are important and have large impacts on people that you can’t measure.”

When you put in the time and work, “learning a language and learning about a culture brings so much more than just cultural and language knowledge.” Gerdes said, “you gain a lot of empathy for other cultures, you’ll learn how cultural ideas differ, and how things are interpreted.” 

Haley Locke, fourth-year economics major and president of the German Club said language connects us to different people and cultures in unique ways. “Language opens your mind up and experiences to whole new things and different people that you may not have connected with before.” Locke said, “I think that’s really the beauty of the club as we kind of reflect that to really like take people from all different backgrounds.” 

Members of the German Club value the community they have built and encourage all students to engage in language learning.