solo:film GmbH

Germany 2023, 90 min
by Sabine Michel

Petry, Schwesig, Magwas and Domscheit-Berg: four female politicians with their roots in the East on the reunification of Germany and the role of women.Symbolic: on the election campaign stand in front of the Mäc Geiz discount store, the left-wing politician Anke Domscheit-Berg discusses the differences in pay between East and West Germany with passers-by – more than thirty years after reunification. She is one of four female politicians with East German backgrounds portrayed in the film. Alongside her, Manuela Schwesig, Yvonne Magwas and Frauke Petry analyse German history – and their own life stories. [38 DOK.fest München, Anka Klauck]

Germany 2023, 80 min
by Sarah Klewes

Director Sarah Klewes is merely twelve years old when she meets writer Claretta Cerio, 65 years her senior, in Tuscany. They begin a pen friendship that lasts 15 years. Then Claretta dies. The world loses an exciting author – and Sarah loses a dear friend. She is left with a box full of letters – and the feeling that Claretta somehow is still there. With the letters in her luggage, she travels to Italy in 2022 to remember her friend – and dares to glimpse into the past.In a mix of fictional scenes and documentary interviews, the portrait of a fascinating writer unfolds. Despite numerous strokes of fate, Claretta Cerio was independent, passionate and an exciting contemporary witness.

Germany 2022, 107 min
by Lutz Pehnert

A biography set in East and West Berlin in which singer-songwriter Bettina Wegner, born in 1947, sings about life in the GDR, her feelings of being uprooted in West Berlin, and looks back with humour and honesty on a life of resistance. [72 Berlinale]

Germany 2018, 130 min
by Adama Ulrich, Lutz Pehnert, Matthias Ehlert

In a society that increasingly resists new ways of thinking and aesthetic transgressions, Frank Castorf calls theatre ‘the last partisan.’ As its director since the early 1990s, Castorf made the Berlin Volksbühne a place of the avant-garde.The film accompanies Castorf on his farewell production of ‘Faust’, while also providing a glimpse of the engine room of this theatre factory. Comrades-in-arms, including the actors Sophie Rois and Alexander Scheer, recall the theatre‘s unique work environment, while news flashbacks bring to life the events of the past 25 years. A tribute to a theatre and its staff.

Germany 2017, 81 min
by Sebastian Winkels

Talking Money is an observational documentary shot at bank consultation tables all over the world. Weaving stories from eight countries into one global money conversation, it virtually transforms the cinema into a bank. Purely experiential!Who are we when we talk about money?Intimate conversations in an impersonal place: from Bolivia to Pakistan, Benin to Switzerland, men and women sit down across from their neighborhood bankers to discuss the intimacies of their financial lives. Far from the glamour of distant Wall Street, this is the reality of personal banking, where one’s life problems are a matter of business.In fifteen spontaneously recorded encounters, the bank table turns into a stage for confessions and masquerades, where consultants and clients try their best to look solid and trustworthy. Filming entirely from the bank’s side of the table, Sebastian Winkels offers the audience a place in a bizarre power play, exploring a complicated relation called ’money’.A multi-voiced comment on capitalism that reveals how the invisible power of money works on all of us, no matter who and where we are.

2016, 52 min
by Iain Dilthey

What is architecture?What can architecture do?What is your architectural position?What is your design method?The answers to these questions gives Àlvaro Siza Vieira – architect, socialist, passionate smoker.