Before becoming a famous writer, Nobel-Prize winner and controversial public figure, Günter Grass has been a visual artist and - being trained as a stonemason - also a craftsman. This early passion for the concrete and haptic is a vital source of his creativity until today.
The film “Late Shift” explores this central yet unknown facet of Grass as an intimate observation. At the age of 83, he produces etchings illustrating “Dog Years”, a novel he has written half a century ago. (The 743 pages book, set during Nazi-Germany and after, describes his formative years. Grass himself favours it over and above the “Tin Drum”.)
He produces the etchings in a close and long-standing collaboration with ...