Fabian&Fred GmbH

Germany 2024, 24 min
by Rebecca Blöcher

My mother has led a very unorthodox life, which has taken her both to palaces and under bridges. She lived in her small car for over 10 years until she could no longer walk and the car gave up right after that. [Rebecca Blöcher]The mother of animation director Rebecca Blöcher didn’t want to live an ordinary life. She wanted 'something more,' she explains in this stop-motion film. The people around her didn’t understand—in a letter written in 1968, a girlfriend criticizes her for going out on her own and making men jealous, while advising her to dress in a more “feminine” way and to join a cooking course. Blöcher’s mother brushed aside the advice. Years later still, she divorced her husband and stepped into the big wide world. In Mama Micra the mother is a figure made of felt who recalls, in her own voice, her powerful urge to find freedom: “I was a real vagabond,” she explains. She traveled to Syria and Beirut, and envied the nomads in the desert. During the last 10 years of her life she lived in a Nissan Micra, washing in the morning in hotel bathrooms and sneaking into breakfast rooms to eat. Her freedom came at a cost. She lost contact with her daughter, who counterpoints her mother’s account with her own recollections. But no harm is irreparable in this affectionate film. [IDFA]The jury: “The filmmaker’s personal and family story, particularly her mother’s life, unfolds through a narrative enriched by diverse animation techniques. These vividly reimagined moments beyond old photographs bring untold realities to life. Themes of personal freedom, aging, and abandonment are poignantly explored, forging a deep emotional connection with viewers. Through the visual magic of animation, the filmmaker delicately portrays her inner world, preserving the bonds of affection and memory, even in the face of absence.”

2020, 5 min
by Frederic Schuld

A British chimney sweeper describes his everyday routine of forcing young kids to become workers. While we observe a kid cleaning a chimney, the master's statement gets more personal with every sentence until we understand, that he is speaking about his own past. Being locked in a vicious circle there seems to be no exit."Based on a meticulously detailed letter, the hard-knock lives of young 19th century chimney sweeps are uncovered in this exquisite animation, which masterfully articulates the finer points of preparing children as young as four for a life of hard labour up the flues of the bourgeoisie." (Hot Docs, Eileen Arandiga)

Germany 2018, 5 min
by Valentin Riedl, Frederic Schuld

When Carlotta looks in the mirror, she doesn't recognize the image reflected back at her. This beautifully animated portrait explores the confusion that face blindness causes for a young child trying to make sense of her world, and ultimately, how this rare neurological condition gave Carlotta the gift of artistic expression. (hotDOCS, Eileen Arandiga)

Czech Republic, Germany 2018, 79 min
by Cyprien Clement-Delmas, Igor Kosenko

"Why are you here? Are you mentally sick? Do you want to kill people?“ the Ukrainian military commander asks the 18-year-old recruit Artiom.Artiom is 18 years old and has just one wish: to go to war and fight for his homeland, Ukraine. Everything else comes second. He dresses in camouflage, watches war videos online, and in his free time practices battle scenes with his friends. Or at least they think they are battle scenes. As a child, he only sees the surface of the war. And he has the bad luck that the fighting rages so tantalizingly close. This observational documentary studies the cult of war in a post-Soviet setting where those who succumb to the allure of battle are the least suitable and least predisposed to fighting – a fact perfectly illustrated by Artiom’s final struggle with the reality of war.See also prequel THE LAST TAPE. As Artiom prepares to fight for the Ukrainian army Anatoly his 88-year-old grandfather and war veteran records their diminishing time together and questions his choice. 12min © 2016

Germany 2016, 12 min
by Igor Kosenko, Cyprien Clement-Delmas

As Artiom prepares to fight for the Ukrainian army Anatoly his 88-year-old grandfather and war veteran records their diminishing time together and questions his choice.See also the in 2018 accomplished 79min documentary BOY OF WAR Artiom’s final struggle with the reality of war.

Germany 2013, 74 min
by Elí Roland Sachs

A young man takes a deep breath in and out again, then he swallows air to fill his lungs. Meditation and therapy, exercises for breath through breath control, artificial lungs and the voluntary transition boundary to the edge of unconsciousness. From the first to the last breath, from the martial artist to the boys’ choir: as simple and self-evident breathing seems at first glance, so complex and effective it is when we look closer. The film BREATH lives from the recent discovery of an everyday action that every person exercises every day a thousand times.

Spain, Germany 2023, 83 min
by Isabel Herguera

Inés a Spanish artist lives in India and stumbles upon Sultana's Dream, a science fiction story written by Rokeya Hossain in 1905. It describes Ladyland, a utopia in which women rule the country while men live in seclusion and are responsible for household chores. Fascinated by the story Inés embarks on a journey across the country to search for the one place where women can live in peace.'With wit and a certain ironic humour, through original and fascinating visual and sound materials, symbolic colours, images, music and sounds that evoke the depth of the film, they recreate the dreamlike world'

2023, 17 min
by Juliane Ebner

Siren-like singing and rhythmic light reflections segue into a lyrical text and sketched silhouettes of coastlines and waves. Delicate lines and soft shadings on superimposed transparent foils form many-layered networks of shapes and structures. What is offscreen creeps into the frame through reflections and blends in with the visual design of the film. Then and now meet and merge into a poetic narrative about a childhood in Stralsund, at a time when the city was still part of the GDR. A fenced-in, circumscribed childhood, framed by nocturnal floodlights, the bawling of drunk sailors and the crumbling plaster of facades and walls gone grey. The narrator manages to leave this oppressive fortress behind, but she can never escape completely. The memories that have settled like grey dust on her interior will stay with her forever. [66 DOK Leipzig, Franka Sachse]