Trimafilm GmbH

2026, 120 min
by Yulia Lokshina

In one of the poorest regions of Paraguay lies Caazapá, the “city of magic and legends”. Here, two young Paraguayan students are searching for happiness, gold and a magic bird. Behind the fences of a gated community, European dropouts are seeking freedom, healing and salvation from Armageddon – for themselves and their savings. Separating them are 12 kilometres of red-earth road which transforms into a quagmire every rainy season. Around them hovers the humid heat and choruses of cicadas. Step by step, the film explores the new community of settlers and the local population; the camera drifts through construction sites, schools, treatment rooms and shooting ranges, gazes up at the sky and into the internet. While the newcomers experience turf wars and loss, the locals follow their own myths which hark back to the country’s missionary and colonial history. They all have a version of paradise. Source of Synopsis

Germany 2024, 79 min
by Katharina Köster, Katrin Nemec

The media call their son the 'patient killer.' He was given a life sentence for his numerous crimes. Life goes on for his parents Ulla and Didi Högel but nothing is the same as before. They must accept the bitter truth, figure out how to cope with everyday life and reposition themselves in relation to their child. A compelling, precisely observed film about parenthood and love. [39 DOK.fest München, Ysabel Fantou]

Germany 2023, 101 min
by Isa Willinger

The global plastic crisis is dismantled and reassembled in a well-researched, cinematic film that not only points to the problems, but also to possible solutions. Probably the most important climate film of the year, with an attentive eye on greenwashing and climate racism. (CPH:DOX)There are 500 times more plastic particles in the world’s oceans than there are stars in our galaxy. Plastic is in the oceans, rivers, air, soil and inside ourselves. And the plastics industry is planning to expand their business in the coming decades. ‘Plastic Fantastic’ is a film about the global plastic crisis. But it’s also a thorough and well-researched film about circular production, greenwashing, microplastics, carbon emissions and climate racism – and it’s made by a director who actually knows how to turn it all into a deeply engaging and, above all, human film. We meet shirt-sleeved plastic lobbyists, scientists and the activists who walk around Hawaii and Kenya picking up plastic waste with their bare hands while trying to put an end to the catastrophic production of plastic.

Ukraine, Germany 2023, 84 min
by Roman Liubyi

On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by Russian forces over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. The reality of this attack, and its possible ramifications for the then-ongoing war in Donbas and the West’s relationship with Russia, was immediately questioned by the Russian government and media. As voluminous evidence — including physical artifacts like the butterfly-shaped shrapnel found in the bodies of the pilots — piled up, the lies denying reality only became more outlandish and incredible.In a world where violence can only be defended by lies, and lies only maintained by violence, Iron Butterflies presents the truth of what happened to MH17, but also what was at stake by not confronting it. Director Roman Liubyi uses a wealth of visual material and individual testimonies to craft this artful yet evidence-driven examination of a turning point in recent world history. This act of mass murder not only destroyed so many people’s lives and the possible future that they could have built — it contained the seeds of the future we now live in. [SUNDANCE FF 2023]