Amerikafilm GmbH

Germany 2021, 86 min
by Sebastian Mez

On a mysterious crackling magnetic tape, a 'viewer' discovers shaky, low-definition images, which seem to have been shot during a moon landing. It is as if we had just landed on another planet, the deserted landscapes of which, seem nonetheless familiar to us and encircled by a worrying strangeness. Traces of the past remain: rusty machines, pylons, human artefacts that multiply as the cameraman approaches what were towns, now plunged into absolute and silent desolation. Composing a series of magnificently framed scenes, emptied of all living presence, the film observes without blinking the agony of our civilisation. No more, no less.

Germany 2022, 90 min
by Matilda Mester

In post-industrial Nakskov, for years known as Denmark's 'reddest' town, retired workers still have strong (all male) networks. They meet at the bookshop to tell tales of the glory days of the shipyard, in the rowing club, at the men's choir and through them we get a sense of the society they were shaped by. Some spend their spare time building a model in 1:50 of the sugar factory they worked in most of their lives. This model becomes a central motif for the film, which suggests looking at Nakskov as a model for understanding what the Danish welfare state was and where it came from.

Colombia, Romania, France, Germany 2022, 72 min
by Theo Montoya

A few years back, director Theo Montoya cast several people from Medellín’s queer scene for his first feature film, a vampire movie about a dystopian city where ghosts coexist with the living. He chose charismatic 21-year-old Camilo Najar for the starring role, but a week later Camilo died of an overdose. The director lost many friends in the same manner.Montoya previously filmed a portrait of Camilo in his powerful, punky short Son of Sodom (2020). In Anhell69, he dives deeper into a no-future generation torn apart by drugs and suicide in a city defined by violence. All hope is gone, and getting stoned is all that’s left. Montoya sees Medellín as a ghost town lost in the mountains, a place where you can’t see the horizon, and from which you can never escape.After attending more funerals than birthdays among his circle of friends, Montoya descends into an existential void. But he picks up the camera again anyway, and—in emulation of his great inspiration Victor Gaviria—makes a film without borders or genders: a “trans film” about all those people who don’t belong to anything or anyone. [35 IDFA]