Films

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]

Germany, Austria, Switzerland 2023, 100 min
by Katrin Rothe

Bertold Brecht called him one of the most important European artists. Rosa Luxemburg personally handed over the party book to the communist of the first hour in 1918. George Grosz and Kurt Tucholsky are among his closest friends and artistic companions. He gave himself an English name in protest against German warmongering. For the Nazis, however, the father of political photomontage John Heartfield quickly became one of the most dangerous enemies of the state. For years he is a fugitive in Europe, and later finds no safe home even in the socialist GDR.The graphic artist Stephanie, plagued by a creative crisis and self-doubt, is fascinated by John Heartfield‘s work, which she discovers in an exhibition. Through a time tunnel, she ends up in a studio where the artist, who has become a cartoon figure, takes her on a journey through his eventful life. A loving friendship develops between the two colleagues. And Stephanie takes up scissors and paper again.Graphic designer Stefanie is having a creative crisis with boring advertising assignments and a boss who does not value her work. During a visit to a museum, she is magically attracted to the satirical photomontages of the world-famous colleague and Nazi opponent John Heartfield. Then a miracle happens, she suddenly turns up in his studio.

Germany 2023, 30 min
by Paul Drey

13 years after his civil service in a hospital in Thiès, Senegal, Paul challanges his memories and traumas. With old video footage, interviews and animations he questions his role as a volunteer within the German system of development aid.

Germany 2023, 30 min
by Alia Haju

Alia didn't even know they were bombs, but when her family could no longer pretend they were safe, they fled to Beirut, later escaping the country. At 18, she returns, discovering that her war-torn country wasn't the homeland she had dreamed of. With the harsh reality surrounding her, Alia shifts from art into visual journalism covering the Syrian war and Lebanon. The injustices she witnesses pile stones over her heart. Seeking refuge at Beirut's seaside, she meets Abu-Samra, a man directed by supernatural forces to become the 'Lebanese Superman'. His world makes more sense than the surrounding madness, and as Alia begins to train with him, their own personal monsters grow and come alive.A revolution ignites. The people of the city, with all their monsters, rise in hope for a future. But the collective dreams falter: the economy collapses, and the super-villain government clings to power. A deafening explosion shatters the heart of the city. What will become of Abu Samra and Alia? What will become of the monsters?

2023, 12 min
by Perghuzat Enver

From afar, Perghuzat Enver reflects on his upbringing in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China. The film is about belonging, friendship, and freedom in an increasingly repressive system. Using delicately-drawn animation and poetic pictures, the film illustrates the search for his own identity, and the inner conflicts that leaving your homeland triggers. [65 Nordic Film Days Lübeck]

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'

Germany 2023, 16 min
by Volker Schlecht

Karen Lips is researcher and lives for several years in a tiny little shack in Costa Rica to observe frogs. When she leaves the cloud forest for a short time and returns, the frogs are gone. All of them. Karen sets out to find them – and encounters a horrible truth. Mysterious deaths occur all over the planet and have a similar pattern. Why have so many species vanished? And what does it all have to do with us?

Belgien, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, USA 2023, 52 min
by Karen Vázquez Guadarrama

Mar Maremoto is a vibrant force of queerness and punk energy. Through her dynamic and emotional artwork, she fearlessly delves into the profound impact of machismo, anguish of fat-shaming, and struggles of not conforming to societal norms.Maremoto (Mar) is a young illustrator in Mexico City struggling to make sense of a town where 11 women are murdered daily, and 95,000 people have gone missing, with no one held accountable. Her feminist drawings support her community in dealing with the emotional trauma left by the femicides and galvanize them to fight to get the government forces to act. With her work, Mar also creates a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community and teaches self-acceptance. [14 DOC NYC, Ruth Somalo]about the series DRAW FOR CHANGE!Cartoonists play a critical role in our world of social media, populism and fake news, offering a unique perspective and voice that can help to cut through the noise and provide clarity in a sea of information. In this digital age of post-truth, the cartoon did not lose any of its power for social commentary and activism. On the contrary.The series DRAW FOR CHANGE! showcases six female cartoonists from around the globe challenging societal boundaries and norms. In each episode, a cartoonist offers viewers a glimpse into her world, exposing not only the hurdles and perils she faces but also the bravery and wit essential for overcoming them. Filming took place in Mexico, Russia, India, Syria, Egypt [and the US], with each country offering distinct challenges, resulting in six episodes centered on themes like femicide, press freedom, and female representation. This series introduces resilient women who draw because it’s unthinkable not to. Despite job loss, intimidation, or death threats, they persist, contributing to incremental changes in their societies. Each film, directed by a distinguished female director linked to the subject’s country, seamlessly blends documentary, cartoons, and animation.After an idea of showrunners/cowriters Vincent Coen & Guillaume Vandenberghe, DRAW FOR CHANGE!, written and directed by Alaa Amer, Alisar Hasan, Sama Pana, Anna Moiseenko, Karen Vázquez Guadarrama [and Laura Nix], and produced by Clin d’oeil films (Hanne Phlypo), coproduced by A Bahn (Marion Guth & François Gall), Point du Jour/Les films du balibari (Estelle Robin You) and Ma.ja.de (Heino Deckert) is presented as broadcast episodes (52 minutes RT) and some have an additional feature lenght (70 minutes RT).

Armenia, Germany, Lithuania 2022, 96 min
by Inna Sahakyan

At only 14 years old, Aurora lost everything during the horror of the Armenian Genocide. But with luck and extraordinary courage she escaped to New York, where her story became a media sensation. Starring in one of the first Hollywood blockbusters as herself in 1919, Auction of Souls, Aurora would become the face of the largest charity campaign in American history. With a blend of vivid animation, aged Aurora’s video testimony, and 18-minute rediscovered footage from her original lost silent epic, Aurora's Sunrise revives Aurora her inspiring forgotten story. The film blends animation with archive footage to tell a tragic story from contemporary history. PRESS REVIEWS:The remarkable life of Armenian genocide survivor Aurora Mardiganian is turned into a gripping animation [WENDY IDE, SCREENDAILY]Inna Sahakyan’s animated doc is a heartbreaking tale of survival on two continents and a vivid re-examination of the Armenian genocide [David Katz, CINEUROPA]A powerful tribute to survival, the film both commemorates the horrors of genocide and paints a hopeful vision of a brighter future. [ISABEL JACOBS, East European Film Bulletin]A survivor of the 1915 Armenian genocide, the story of Aurora Mardiganin is the harrowing true story of a teenager who, after seeing her family murdered, embarked on a remarkable journey that involved incarceration within a Turkish harem and escape to the US. [Mark Adams, Business Doc Europe]One of the more compelling productions on the Armenian Genocide of 1915 [Grace Han, Asian Movie Pulse.com]

Germany 2022, 75 min
by Martin Hans Schmitt

The animated stereoscopic documentary "How I Survived the Pyongyang Film Festival 3D" describes the personal experiences of the documentary filmmaker Martin Hans Schmitt, who took part in the Pyongyang International Film Festival in 2018. It is a travel film, during the course of which it gradually reveals how the dictatorship of Kim Jong-Un shapes the lives and thoughts of North Koreans right down to the smallest private niche, and also gradually influences the filmmaker too, increasingly creating the impression that we are observing a real-life satire.

Germany, Spain 2022, 86 min
by Toti Baches

RED CUNT is an animation and a documentary movie about the period and shows portraits of people who successfully fight the taboo around the period. To these portraits are added animated scenes that tell the story of the being of blood Mensi and the girl Isabel.

Germany 2021, 5 min
by Kevin Koch, Emma Holzapfel

Kevin Hines, suffering from auditory hallucinations, attempts to take his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. In the millisecond after the jump, he immediately regrets his decision. Miraculously, however, he survives the jump and is saved, as he later says himself, by a gift from God.Kevin Hines is one of the few people to have survived a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. In this hand-drawn documentary, he reflects on the day that changed his life forever.

Germany 2020, 19 min
by Eluned Zoë Aiano, Anna Benner

In the early 2000s, the small Czech town of Třeboň found itself at the center of unexpected international attention when the worldwide press picked up on an obscure urban legend from World War II. The story concerns a nurse who was raped by a Nazi and contracted syphilis as a result. While tending to other wounded soldiers, she seized her opportunity for revenge and systematically seduced them to pass on the deadly disease. She was so successful that eventually the Gestapo had her executed. At least, this is the version told by the international press. The residents of the town have their own contradictory interpretations, however, including a local historian and even the man who decided to erect a plaque in her honor. BLACK & WHITE pieces this story together through a collage of interviews with a group of locals. The film explores how the story came about in the first place, and how it evolved after it ended up in the news. Their reflections are visualized through a combination of excerpts from the history of cinema, together with animation, problematizing the types of tropes and conventions used to depict the roles of women in history.

2020, 28 min
by Alina Cyranek, Falk Schuster

Leipzig, GDR, 1980s: The Hotel Astoria is a magical, almost sacred place. Business people, prostitutes, the elite of the Socialist Party, and from time to time ordinary people meet here. But lobster, salmon and caviar are not always on the menu – extravagance is also on ration. And the Stasi are always watching. Memories of former staff and guests are brought to life in a mix of archive footage and animation. Constant ambiguities show that different historical experiences can co-exist, and that there are gray areas between propaganda and reality.

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)

2019, 86 min
by Dandan Liu

HALF DREAM is a personal documentary film about three Chinese former art students and their dream of creating art. Ten years after their graduation from the Beijing Art Academy, the filmmaker goes to find three of her former classmates in order to confront them with their common past, their creative urges to make art, and their current lives. The film portrays the one-child policy generation of the 1980s and their attempt to make their way through life amidst a society shaken from economic and social upheaval. A film about dealing with social realities and the profound need for individual expression and creativity in a lifefrom which art is slowly disappearing.

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)

Germany, Switzerland, Finland 2018, 90 min
by Anja Kofmel

Croatia, January 1992. In the midst of the Yugoslav Wars, Chris, a young Swiss journalist is found dead in mysterious circumstances. He was wearing the uniform of an international mercenary group. Anja Kofmel was his cousin. As a little girl, she used to admire this handsome young man; now a grown-up woman, she decides to investigate his story, trying to understand what really was the involvement of Chris in the conflict…With: Megan Gay, Joel Basman, Michael Würtenberg, Veronika Schwab, Carlos Ilich, Ramirez Sanchez, Sinisa Juricic, Heidi Rinke, Julio Cesar Alonso, Alejandro Hernandez Mora

Germany 2018, 7 min
by Ines Christine Geißer, Kirsten Carina Geißer

A house, a garden, a stream. The behive on the hillside, the shack, the wooden hut and the shed. Inbetween we find memories, stories and observations. The past, the present and the future.

Germany 2018, 90 min
by Mohammad Farokhmanesh, Frank Geiger

LITTLE GERMANS combines animation and documentary film to tell the story of children that are born into extreme right-wing families. From a young age on they are trained to hate everything that seems 'foreign'. How does it feel to grow up in a world, where empathy is subsidiary and 'the nation' stands above everything? And who do those 'little Germans' become once they grow up?

2018, 7 min
by Alexander Lahl, Max Mönch, Falk Schuster

They had a normal father-daughter relation. One day she told him to set off for a wedding party in Denmark. But that was a lie. A few months later she started her new life. As the wife of a djihadist living in Syria.

2018, 30 min
by Esther Niemeier

A true story about a war and the tragic impact it has on the lives of three people.In his early twenties Addai leaves his entire life behind and moves to Syria to help victims of the civil war. At first he is assigned kitchen duty together with Ilias. Addai writes to his mother: “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” Two years later Addai’s mother receives a letter from prison. Ilias has been sentenced for terrorism by a German court. He wants to meet her and writes: “One thing you have to believe me, we went there with good intentions.”

Germany 2017, 90 min
by Katrin Rothe

Petersburg, 1917: we re-experience the year of the two revolutions. From the perspective of Russian artists such as Maxim Gorky and Kazimir Malevich, we recount the events of this turbulent year.Petersburg, 1917: Russian artists in the year of two revolutions. The tsar abdicates and suddenly everything seems possible. Eight months after the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution, the Bolshevists seize power in October. But what exactly happened in this period between February and October? How did the people of Petersburg experience these turbulent months? With the help of numerous detailed recordings and documents, we recount the events from the perspective of artists such as Maxim Gorky, Kazimir Malevich and Zinaida Gippius. We find out how the artists tried to influence the future of Russia. We learn of their thoughts, strategies, concerns and everyday problems, and we see the events of the time through their eyes. The questions they then faced are still relevant today: What role do artists and art play in times of social upheaval? Where and how did they push forward events themselves? A filmically experimental perspective of these events, inspired by the avant-garde aesthetics of this time.

Germany 2017, 15 min
by Andre Hörmann, Samo

Akiko Takakura is one of the last survivors of the atomic bomb explosion of Hiroshima. During Obon, she receives the spirits of her parents and is haunted by memories. Her father is an authoritarian and traditional man. Akiko’s childhood consists of constant rejections and beatings. But the horrors of the atomic bomb and Japan’s subsequent capitulation change everything. Finally Akiko experiences fatherly love in the midst of Hiroshima’s ruins.