farbfilm verleih GmbH

Germany 2024, 102 min
by Philipp Fussenegger, Judy Landkammer

Capturing Peaches' transformative journey on 'The Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour' in 2022, this documentary blends exclusive archival gems with dynamic tour footage. From stage show inception to riveting performances, it offers an intimate look at the inner workings of feminist icon Peaches, a fearless force challenging gender norms for over two decades. Her biting wit advocates for LGBTQIA+ rights and confronts societal stereotypes, leaving an indelible mark on popular culture.With: Peaches, Black Cracker, Bláthin, Tif 'Teddy' Lamson, Federica Dauri, Natasha Vergilio, Hilary Fox, Bryan Schall, Olivia Oyama, Ixa, Mignon, Leslie Feist, Chilly Gonzales, Shirley Manson, Charlie Le Mindu

Germany, USA 2024, 87 min
by Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck

Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product."I wanted to see if he was okay," explains Christi, one of the users of Project December. With this innovative software, users can communicate with a virtual version of the deceased through a chatbot that simulates the dead person’s conversation patterns. Hers was an attempt to check on her first love. Others may simply miss someone, seek permission to move on, or want to rid themselves of guilt.Little is known about the effects that this kind of generative AI might have on our brains, hearts, and wallets. The filmmakers, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck (THE CLEANERS, 2018 Sundance Film Festival), do not claim to have the answers, but instead bring up various emotional and moral complexities we should be aware of. Eternal You poses important questions about algorithmic immortality, and the need to take a closer look at our future 'digital remains.' — AT [source sundance catalogue 2024]

2023, 87 min
by Rubén Abruña

When sewers were built in the 19th century, they were regarded as a blessing. Deadly epidemics that wiped out millions of people became a thing of the past in the Western world. However, sewers also abolished the millennia-old tradition of using our excrement as fertilizer, and broke the nutrient cycle of grow-eat-excrete-compost-to grow food again. The modern flush and forget toilet discards our excrement as waste, while agriculture uses more mineral fertilizers to produce food. Mineral fertilizers which require large amounts of fossil fuels to be extracted or are non-renewable and whose global reserves are uncertain and difficult to predict.

2021, 93 min
by Marten Persiel

In a dystopian 2054, three young rebels go on a journey to find traces of the long lost beauty of nature, hoping to discover what happened to their planet. The answer lies in the past and when they find the key to a decade – the 2020s – when a colourful future was still possible, everything changes. In this unusual road movie, lighthearted fiction meets scientific fact to explore the most pressing question of our time: Extinction.

Germany 2020, 110 min
by Janna Ji Wonders

In her documentary family saga WALCHENSEE FOREVER, director Janna Ji Wonders embarks on a deeply personal voyage of discovery spanning a century: She takes us from the family café at the Bavarian Walchensee to San Francisco to the infamous "Summer of Love“ and discovers the secrets of her family to track down their role in the generation chain. Surrounded by mountains, lake Walchensee rests in its endless dynamic and is the dramaturgical center of their life and this film. WALCHENSEE FOREVER is a very modern, soft and feminine documentary and a poetic project about generations of women, the circle of life and about the bond to one’s own roots.Statement of the Jury Compass-Perspektive-Award:This film is a crystal. The longer you look at it, the more you discover new facets. It portrays women of a family in Bavaria over five generations. Supplemented by extraordinary material obtained from the family's private archive, the protagonists report honestly, cleverly and directly to the camera. Accordingly, an overall picture of private life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries emerges from these individual stories. Everything that is told remains personal and individual and, not least because of the modest attitude of the filmmaker and her protagonists, it develops an overwhelming strength. Cleverly assembled, clearly filmed and narrated and produced with warm-heartedness, we listen to and watch Apa, Norma, Anna, Frauke and Janna. The silent chronicler of it all is the Walchensee, which connects all their lives.

Germany 2020, 89 min
by Carmen Losmann

Layer by layer, the episodic documentary OECONOMIA reveals how the rules of the contemporary capitalist game systematically precondition growth, deficits and concentrations of wealth. With particular shrewdness and rigor OECONOMIA articulates the more egregious aspects of capitalist economy rendered invisible by the prevalent media coverage.

Germany, Belgien, Israel 2020, 122 min
by Carl-Ludwig Rettinger

The Red Orchestra was a most important resistance net in Nazi Germany, which also collected military information. With the assistance of a Jewish espionage ring in Brussels and Paris, they passed it to the Soviets. After locating their radio transmissions, Hitler set off a deadly hunt. During the Cold War, the legacy of the Red Orchestra got ground down between the propaganda of East and West. Two large-scale feature films were launched on both sides, each telling merely half of the truth. Excerpts are now ‘reunited’ to impart the story in full. Furthermore, descendants of the people involved, in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Jerusalem and New York contribute to this first comprehensive filmic account of the defamed resistance network.WithLital Levin, grandniece of Leopold Trepper, ParisRebecca Donner, grandniece of Mildred Harnack, New York CityRoberta Böcker, niece of Libertas Schulze-Boysen, EinbeckYehudit Kafri, writer, Tel AvivDr. Hans Coppi, son of Hans and Hilde Coppi, BerlinGuillaume Bourgeois, historian, ParisSacha Barcza, grandson of Anatoli Gurewitsch and Margarete Barcza, AlicanteAndré Possot, BrusselsDr. Gerhard Sälter, historian, Berlin

2018, 93 min
by Bettina Renner

Haris is fifteen years old. He was born in Dresden and grew up with a self-concept of being german. But now, during puberty, Haris not only discovers girls, but also his otherness, as he says: His bosnian roots. He explores what part of him is bosnian and constructs his own identity.Haris's older sister, Adisa, was seven years old when she and her mother and brother Farouk had to flee Bosnia in 1992 and came to Dresden. When she was as old as Haris today, she tried to take away everything from Bosnia to adapt herself to her new home. Only very few people around her know that Adisa was once a refugee. She feels at home in Saxony, Dresden. It is her home.The documentary Here and There tells the story of the teenager Haris and his family. The film tells about the growing-up of a boy and pursues an universal, fundamental question of life: What is identity? How do we construct our identity? What influence does the outside have on self-attribution? What do we find inside? How do we discover ourselves? Haris will fight with his sisters. They both picture the image of a modern woman - but he has a completely different role model on his mind. Where do these thoughts come from?Our film narrates an individual family history and gives a very far-reaching and personal perspective on the societal-political issue of escape.

Germany 2018, 87 min
by David Dietl 

BERLIN BOUNCER tells the story of Berlin, from a parted city to the party metropolis of today, through the eyes of its most legendary Doormen. Frank came in the 1980's to study in Berlin while Smiley Baldwin was still guarding the wall as an American GI. Behind the wall lived Sven, a young punk and photographer. When the Wall came down, nightlife took control over their lives. Until today they play a decisive role in the reunited city's never ending nights as the most famous bouncers of Berlin's popular clubs.

Germany 2017, 97 min
by Jakob Preuss

Paul has made his way from his home in Cameroon across the Sahara to the Moroccan coast where he now lives in a forest waiting for the right moment to cross the Mediterranean. This is where he meets Jakob, a filmmaker from Berlin, who is filming along Europe's borders. Soon afterwards, Paul manages to cross over to Spain on a rubber boat. He survives - but half of his companions die on this tragic 50 hour odyssey. Held for two months in a deportation centre, upon his release Paul meets Jakob again at a shelter for migrants in Southern Spain. When Paul decides to continue on to Germany, Jakob has to make a choice: will he become an active part of Paul's pursuit of a better life or remain a detached documentary filmmaker?

Germany 2017, 95 min
by David Sieveking

David Sieveking’s autobiographical feature doc FAMILY SHOTS tells the story of a loving couple and the challenges they face when their first baby is born. Confronted with the extensive vaccination schedule for newborns they realize they do not agree on this issue. To solve their conflict and insecurity David sets out on a research trip to unearth the facts and dispel the myths surrounding vaccinations. Constantly torn between his family duties at home and his investigations David travels through Europe and as far as West Africa to get to the bottom of it. FAMILY SHOTS is both, a tongue-in-cheek family comedy and a profound research into the global impact of vaccination today.A documentary by David Sieveking in co-production with Lichtblick Film, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg., in cooperation with ARTE.With the support of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Film- und Medienstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessische Filmförderung and Deutscher Filmförderfonds/FFA. Distributed by farbfilm verleih.

2016, 118 min
by Marcus Vetter, Karin Steinberger

The gruesome murders of Nancy and Derek Haysom in 1985 were an international media sensation. The Haysoms were wealthy, respected members of Virginia society, and the murder conviction of their daughter Elizabeth and her German boyfriend Jens Soering sent shock-waves through the rural community of Bedford County. Elizabeth and Jens had met in a university program for high achieving students. She was a product of European boarding schools, he was the son of a diplomat. After being arrested in London, England, for passing bad checks in 1986, they were both extradited to the United States and have now spent over 30 years behind bars. This beautifully crafted film reveals a mismanaged, or perhaps completely corrupted, judicial process. This was the first criminal trial held in front of TV cameras — was the first high profile, international case tried in a small town.

Germany 2016, 90 min
by Sung-Hyung Cho

Who really knows anything about North Korea beyond its borders? Whatever we see or hear about this isolated land is always the same: Military parades with tanks and rockets, male and female soldiers marching like robots, threats of war, famine, obedient children and not least of all, three generations of dictators and their hysterically adoring followers. Award-winning filmmaker Sung-Hyung Cho pursues this question from right within its midst – in North Korea.MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE NORTH portrays the people behind the persistent clichés and stereotypes of a misunderstood nation and provides an in-depth look behind the garish façade of propaganda in a living environment that is usually inaccessible to us. The people encountered by the director on her journey through the country – engineers, soldiers, farmers, painters, seamstresses – are not chance acquaintances, they were chosen by the regime. Nevertheless, Cho approaches her protagonists with sincere interest, respect and most of all, devoid of any judgement. Thus appears a cheerful folk who, despite their often peculiar-seeming love towards their “leader”, have by no means given up on their dreams or the hope of a reunification of both Koreas. Filmmaker Sung-Hyung Cho grew up in South Korea with the notion that her neighbouring country in the north was populated by monsters: At school she was taught that North Koreans had red skin and two horns on their heads. As the first South Korean filmmaker to ever receive official permission to film in the country beyond its borders, Cho acquired the chance to bid farewell to her prejudices and revise her preconceived image of people in North Korea.

Germany 2016, 87 min
by Susan Gluth

Urmila’s dream is to end child slavery in Nepal. The human rights activist was sold by her parentswhen she was 6 years old. 12 years later she became free. The film portraits her quest for justice andher personal fight against the inner demons of her own past. First she must break through the controlof those around her to begin to make her own life choices."In Nepal, Kamalari is a custom of selling girls, who are forced to slave labor and do not have access to education. One of them was Urmila, who, having regained her freedom after 12 years, decided to devote herself to saving other children. The film allows you to get to know Urmila very closely. The director, with a great sense of intuition and consistency, introduces us into the world of Urmila’s inner struggles, helps us to understand her extraordinary determination, but also the loneliness of a person who has been deprived of childhood." (The Prize of the Mayor of Zakopane/Poland for the film which best pictures human, cultural and artistic aspects of mountain population)"We have chosen Urmila – My Memory is My Power as this year’s Main Competition First Prize because of its brilliantly executed and clearly structured documentary journey through the eyes of one young woman’s personal, brave and tireless fight for justice.For what is a very poignant, very real and distressing subject matter about an extremely remarkable young woman and her tireless efforts to save young female children from the fate that she suffered herself in Nepal society, the documentary is executed clearly in its facts through rhythmic editing and pacing but what makes it unique is not just for being beautifully shot, but also for the original, and at times almost lyrical way that it avoids being drawn into sentimentality and judgement so therefore consistently remaining impartial to the problems thereby letting the audience draw their own interpretations and conclusions from what they see and hear“ (First Prize at KIMFF / Kathmandu / Nepal)

Germany 2016, 87 min
by Philip Gnadt, Mickey Yamine

Gaza – a strip of land with a population of 1.7 million citizens, wedged between Israel and Egypt and isolated from the outside world. 26 miles of coastline with a harbor that no longer services ships. Hardly anything gets into Gaza and even less gets out. The young generation is growing up with very little perspective - occupied and jobless. But against this background there is a small movement.Our protagonists are part of the surf community of Gaza City. Round about 40 surfboards have been brought into the country over the past decades with great effort and despite strict sanctions. It is those boards that give them an opportunity to experience a small slice of freedom - between the coastal reminder of a depressing reality and the Israeli-controlled three mile marine border.

Germany 2015, 105 min
by David Bernet

Democracy offers an insight into a hidden world of political struggle for new data protection legislation in the European Union. Euro-MP Jan Philipp Albrecht and EU-Commissioner Viviane Reding attempt the supposedly impossible. They take on a hard-edged apparatus of political power, in which intrigue, success and failure are frequent bedfellows. After two and a half years following the legislative process, the documentary brings complex power structures to life and offers a snapshot of democracy today.