Spirit Cinema is Serious Business
by Becky Tan

Ada Rompf describes herself as a bookseller with a passion for film. When, after 15 years, she gave up her own esoteric Mandala Book Store at Rutschbahn 7, she naturally turned to film, in more ways than one. In 2008 Ada was the stand-in for actress Vanessa Redgrave who was in Hamburg making her first German film, a television crime thriller The Job (based on the book Ein Job by Irene Dische).

Now Ada writes for the monthly KGS Magazine. KGS stands for Körper Geist und Seele (body, spirit, and soul). It specializes in esoteric literature and is published through the Wrage Book Store, Schlüterstrasse 4, which belongs to Jürgen P. Lipp. The magazine features a wide range of topics from wellness to yoga to feng shui and meditation. It is a great networking source with information about workshops, meetings, and like-minded readers. 

Ada reviews “spirit cinema” which can be many things; for example, she discusses How I Ended This Summer, Of Gods and Men, and Another Earth. See www.kgs-hamburg.de. She says, “Spirit films should also have good cinematic qualities, such as Soul Surfer, which, so far, has shown in the U.S. but not yet in Germany.”

KGS/Wrage Book Store organizes special film showings in conjunction with Abaton cinema, for example Spirit Cinema for Peace. In November they featured a special showing of Halt auf freier Strecke (Stopped on Track). Here, a man has it all: family, house, job, and then learns that he has cancer which will kill him. Experts in the field of counselling or spiritual guidance, such as Dr. Dorothee Hart from the University Hospital Eppendorf, discussed the topic after the film showing. Ada’s group also showed and discussed Das Ende ist mein Anfang, staring Bruno Ganz, about the life of Italian journalist and spiritual leader, Terziano Terzani. There have been special spirit cinema showings about a young Buddhist lama, young people in Turkey or the Bhagwan Movement in the 1970s.

Parallel to writing, she works at Gudrun Sjödén, the Swedish boutique, near the Rathaus, since 2005. She always liked the fashions and in 2003 offered her services to the main office in Sweden, even before there was a Gudrun Sjödén shop in Hamburg. It finally opened in 2005 – the second in Germany, although they have been selling via mail order for more than 30 years. Ada is expert at helping customers recognize their types, i.e., spring, summer, fall or winter. She tries to talk everyone out of wearing black and says, “Life is colorful.” Recently, she modelled in their fashion show in the Speicherstadt and has appeared in their catalogues. She says, “It’s interesting that many of the customers of esoteric book stores also shop at Gudrun Sjödén and vice versa.”

Ada is a real Hamburger Deern (native Hamburg girl), born and raised in HH-Rissen. She officially “retired” in 2010, but, in her life, retirement takes on new meaning, considering her many on-going activities in film and fashion. She lives according to her beliefs, one of which is, “I am convinced that nothing happens by chance.” It’s no wonder that she is so vivacious and beautiful. (BT)