24 episodes
of the short film series are available on YouTube
4 actors
perform in the series
Over 2 years
viewers could actively take part in shaping the series
The actors and staff of the series are considered to be people with intellectual disabilities. Eddi Airways does not thematise disability, says the group's moderator and director of the web series, Eike Swoboda. It is never mentioned in the comments of the fans that “Eddi” has made on the internet so far. It provides the performance of the group with the fourth dimension of wonder, with which “Eddi” wants its fans to escape from their everyday lives.
The film project remains unique. Not only because his hero – episode after episode – runs away from birds and remains clueless despite many clues. “Eddi” is created and performed by people who are generally expected to be clueless. You would not think they know how to create and perform them. It even went on a festival tour.
Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf (Alsterdorf Protestant Foundation), Hamburg: Creative workshop “barner 16”
A series of short films were produced from 2011 to 2013 by and with members of the creative workshop under the direction of filmmakers Eike Swoboda and Carl-John Hoffmann. They tell the story of Eddi Airways, who has to deal with a mysterious world of birds.
The main staff – as authors and as actors – are the members of the workshop “barner 16”. They do not place themselves as disabled people at the centre of their projects, but rather perform and shape being different. This makes disability normal. As “arte kompakt” accurately described it in July 2011, they do not pursue social projects but are a cultural phenomenon.
The creative workshop's way of working is an exemplary experiment that revolves less around the problems of disabled people than around their own and unique talents. The Hörmann Group has been sponsoring individual projects of the workshop for years.
