Films

Germany 2024, 52 min
by Wilfried Hauke

Three hundred years after the birth of philosopher Immanuel Kant in April 2024, this documentary takes us back to 18th-century Königsberg.Immanuel Kant, born in Königsberg in 1724, was already one of the key Enlightenment thinkers during his lifetime and is still one of the most influential figures in Western philosophy today. Kant wanted to explain the world, but at the same time he was aware that he himself – like all human beings – only had a limited capacity for understanding. He never left his native Königsberg, learning all he knew about world affairs from the books he had sent over to him from England and France. And everything he knew about people was the result of the relentless observation of his environment and his own emotional life. He combined all this knowledge into a complex system of concepts, categories and matrices. The result is a moral philosophy whose universal validity he tested constantly. Marking three hundred years since his birth – in April 2024 – the film shows for the first time just how closely Kant was connected to his native town of Königsberg, which is taken back to the 18th century using sophisticated animation techniques. Many of the pressing questions that plagued people 300 years ago are posed anew in the film, in the face of the climate catastrophe and war in Europe.

Germany 2024, 82 min
by Narges Kalhor

SHAHID is a political drama and a desperate comedy at the same time. It is about historical heroes, today's criminals and how modern women deal with them. A story by and about migrants in Germany and from afar. SHAHID is a personal film that questions all kinds of radical ideologies – and doesn't always take itself too seriously.

Bulgaria, Germany 2024, 96 min
by Eliza Petkova

With the population in decline, a traditional way of life is ending in a remote, rundown Bulgarian village. This poetic and at times tragicomic film follows the last remaining inhabitants from the perspective of several domesticated animals. There’s a great deal of attention given to sound, light and movement: an overflowing bucket, sunlight dancing in rustling foliage, the ticking sound of ants on the move, and a cowbell clanging in the wind. The filmmakers focus on the sensory perceptions of the animals without attributing thoughts or feelings to them. But the villagers do precisely that. Was the neighbor punishing or protecting her violent alcoholic son when she turned him into a donkey, they wonder, and is that cat possessed by a vampire? The contrast is fascinating between the villagers’ fears and superstitions, and the no-nonsense, even harsh, ways in which they treat the animals. The slightly experimental music forming the soundtrack is at times complemented by women singing a beautiful traditional song containing both solos and polyphony. [37 IDFA]

Germany 2023, 45 min
by Daniel Burkholz

Vincent Almudever and Joseph Almudever, two brothers of Spanish-French origin (or vice versa). They fought in the Spanish Civil War as well as in the Second World War against the Fascists and the Nazis. It took them 10 years until they met again after they had went to war. And they kept on being political animals until they passed away: Joseph at the age of 102, Vincent at the age of 105... .

Germany 2023, 72 min
by Danielle Davie, Mohamad Moe Sabbah

What is the shape of a virus? To some, it’s a kiwi, to others, it’s a butterfly, a wart or an unnameable mass. In Embodied Chorus, filmmakers Danielle Davie and Mohamad Moe Sabbah bravely open a dialogue about living with sexually transmitted infections. Drawing from their own experiences and collaborating with five actors, they turn individual testimonials – recorded across the city of Beirut – into an ensemble of personal stories and transformations. "My biggest fear is changing as a person… I feel like an outsider in my own self," says one of the people. While the experiences are distinct – in languages, gender identities and sexual orientations – they share the emotions of shock, fear, anger and shame. At times, the screen becomes a canvas that visualizes people's inner worlds: images of metamorphosis, search engine results, a body consumed by darkness. Gradually, the conversations move towards recovery and change. Confusion and stigmatization fade away, as people find acceptance within themselves. [36 IDFA]With Caroline Hatem, Basma Baydoun, Cyril Kokozaki, Hashem Adnan, Firas Hallak, Danielle Davie & Mohamad Sabbah

Germany 2023, 79 min
by Julia Fuhr Mann

If history is written by the victors, where does that leave those who were never allowed to be part of the game? A collective of queer athletes enters the Olympic Stadium in Athens and sets out to honour those who were excluded from standing on the winners' podium. They meet Amanda Reiter, a trans* marathon runner who has to struggle with the prejudices of sports organisers and Annet Negesa, a 800m runner who was urged by the international sports federations to undergo hormone-altering surgery. Together they create a radical utopia far from the rigid gender rules in competitive sports.With: Annet Negesa, Amanda Reiter, Caitlin Fisher, Daniel Marin Medina, Chun Mei Tan, Eva Maria Jost, Jakob Levi Stahlberg, Oumou Aidara, Greta Graf

Germany 2023, 99 min
by Susanne Weirich, Bramkamp Robert

An array of social and professional milieus have grown up at three German prop houses. Each depot has a different logic and its own particular community of experts in moving, processing, sorting and presenting up to 100,000 migrating things – from an old-world analogue order to diverse new ones.Lamps, cups, sofas, collection tins, flags, toy fish, plastic flowers, clocks, fake oil paintings and other film props blossom in unimaginable variety. All this stuff changes hands countless times as it migrates from an old-world analogue order to diverse new ones. On the internet film props mutate into descriptions, photos and search terms. In the outside world of 'made-up reality' they emerge as quotes from film and TV productions. In docu-fiction they lead BiPOC actor Thelma Buabeng into provenance research in the props house and a daily thing-life of African objects.

Germany, Belgien 2023, 92 min
by Jascha Hannover, Claus Bredenbrock

THE BOOKS HE DIDN'T BURN takes a critical look at the history of Western thought by examining the remains of Adolf Hitler's private library. The dictator and mass murderer owned 16,000 books at the end of his life, 1,200 of which are kept in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C today. The documentary follows American historian Timothy Ryback, who studied these books for almost a decade. While many still confine racism and antisemitism to the ideological extremes in the history of the West, Hitler's library shows that the opposite was the case: many of the books in his library were bestsellers long before the Nazis took power in 1933 – the ideas in them paved the way for Hitler and have a strong impact until this day.Narration by Academy Award Winner, Jeremy Irons.

Germany 2023, 77 min
by Juliane Tutein

The documentary provides a unique glimpse into the struggle for democracy in Belarus and the lives of three women after the major protests of 2020. These protests were the largest in Belarus's history, but the Lukaschenko regime brutally suppressed them. Over the course of an entire year, the film follows these exceptional women from different generations, all of whom continue to tirelessly fight for a democratic Belarus. The documentary concludes amidst Russia's destructive war of aggression in Ukraine, impressively highlighting the inseperable fate of Belarus and Ukraine. It becomes abundantly clear that many Belarusians share the conviction that without a free Ukraine, there can never be a democratic future for Belarus. The film portrays the fearless 74-years-old activist Nina Baginskaya, who experienced the Soviet era and has beeen tirelessly advocating for a democratic Belarus since the 1980s. Additionally, the film accompanies the founder of the "Watch Docs Belarus" film festival, Tanya Hatsura-Yavorskaya, who faces a looming prison sentence due to her bold and unwavering human rights work. Meanwhile, countless innocent individuals who took to the streets for a free and democratic Belarus are in prison. The 22-year-old human rights activist Darya Rubleskaya, who had to flee abroad to escape an impending prison sentence, now seeks to draw attention to the fates of the many political prisoners from Vilnius. Directed by Juliane Tutein, a filmmaker who has already received awards for her previous works on Belarus, this documentary is a captivating testament to how people fight for democracy on a daily basis, even when they are scarcely visible in the public eye.

2022, 117 min
by Kyra Steckeweh, Tim van Beveren

The film dives into a time that has more in common with today's than one might think. "It was the golden age of security," writes Stefan Zweig in his book "The World of Yesterday." It was in this world that composer Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) created her works, which are not inferior to those of her famous male colleagues. She was born a countess and able to develop her talent at an early age. But after WW I and the collapse of the K.u.K-monarchy, she had to adapt her life to the new times in order to continue composing. After her tragic death she fell into oblivion, but her music comes alive again when the filmmakers with the Gewandhausorchester succeeded in realizing a plan that the composer was unable to complete 100 years ago.

Germany, France 2022, 105 min
by Philip Scheffner

A bus stop, a town square, a few blocks of houses in the suburb of a small French town, in Chatellerault. Zohra Hamadi, an Algerian citizen, can stand upright thanks to several metal rods, and now seems free of her debilitating scoliosis – the very reason for her immigration to France. By a twist of fate, this same recovery leads to her residence permit being revoked by the French State: she must consequently disappear, become invisible and inaudible. Choosing to make what he describes as State-coerced fiction, Philip Scheffner (to whom an Atelier was dedicated in 2018) abandons the documentary project he had begun and invents a scenario and a form to convey the violence and absurdity of this situation: Rhim Ibrir – whose story this is, and who had already taken part in one of the filmmaker’s previous films, Havarie – plays the main role, drawing from her own traumas. Via a simple and ingenious device that consists in particular of isolating the protagonist in the frame, the German filmmaker delivers a powerful political film. [VdR, Émilie Bujès]with: Rhim Ibrir, Thierry Cantin, Didier Cuillierier, Khadra Bekkouche, Nouria Lakhrissi, Sadya Bekkouche, Hassane Ziani, Zoulikha Ibrir

Germany 2022, 85 min
by Carolin Schmitz

The basis for the project is documentary in nature. Eight women between 30 and 75 talk about their lives and motherhood. What all the women have in common is the realization that motherhood is a highly ambivalent experience. In the film, their documentary statements are visually brought together in a fictional character - portrayed by Anke Engelke. The actress integrates the women's reports into the laconic narrative about the everyday life of a woman and mother.

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 2021, 52 min
by Kai Christiansen

John F. Kennedy is known as a charismatic and popular U.S. President. What is behind the political pop star who first inspired the U.S. and then half the globe in the early 1960s? The film returns to his early years as an adventurous student in the 1930s and recounts his life through his travels across the Atlantic. We get to know a different Kennedy. One who flirts a lot, is inspired by cultural heritage and begins to think about political contexts during his travels. A young man looking for his way in life.

Germany 2021, 90 min
by Annette Baumeister

The highly talented composer Johannes Brahms was a close friend of Clara and Robert Schumann. His work is often put on a par with Beethoven’s. This docudrama paints a vivid picture of his musical pursuits and private life. When Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833, no one could have known that he would one day be a child prodigy who would leave a lasting mark on music history. In the opinion of international music critics, the grandiose symphonic power of his music, the richness of his themes and the concentrated form of his symphonies are on a par with Beethoven’s greatest works. And yet Brahms suffered from melancholy throughout his life and is thus often regarded as a solitary, tragic genius. What influenced and inspired him? Who was it that triggered such complex emotions, which he then expressed in his musical masterpieces? The women in his life certainly sparked his creativity. In particular his friendship – or, better said, his deep, unfulfilled love – for the famous but much older pianist Clara Schumann would accompany him throughout his lifetime. Although Brahms ended up putting his art before his love life, one can feel his anguished devotion to Clara in his music – music that still today inspires writers, filmmakers and musicians the world over. The docudrama takes us back to the nineteenth century to immerse us in the life and career of the highly talented composer and combines dramatic re-enactments with documentary sequences, painting a vivid picture of Brahms’s musical pursuits and private life.

Germany 2021, 22 min
by Jan Wilde

Two police officers arrive at a crime scene where they find a group of people around a man who is tied to a tree. They demand their statements one by one. In flashbacks from the point of view of the different people the film tells the story of a self-proclaimed vigilante group. Daniel Wörth,Christian Schramm as well as the local politician Holger Arndt forcibly removed young Tunisian Karim from a supermarket after the employee Juliane Giess has accused him of shop lifting. In the parking lot in front of the store they tie Karim to a tree, harass him and do not let go of him until they found the stolen goods. Little by little, however, they become more relentless in order to achieve their goal. Only Mrs. Urban who is walking by accidentally intervenes and sides with Karim.While the men claim to have acted out of moral courage Mrs. Urban accuses them of racist violence. A conflict unfolds that puts the communitie's social stability to the test. The film takes an experimental turn when original social media chats are inserted and comment on what is shown on screen. The setting is an artificial theatrical environment which aims to render racism as a universal phenomenon.

Germany 2020, 68 min
by Ekaterina Reinbold

The movie где остался домовой / STANDING IN FRONT OF MANY HOUSES has two titles. The literal translation from Russian is .Where did the Domovoi go?. and refers to an old Slavic popular belief. Hence the house spirit, the Domovoi, ensures the protection and peace of a place. The English title plays with the impossibility of a direct translation of this figure and describes through the vivid STANDING IN FRONT OF MANY HOUSES the feeling of being lost in a diasporic experience. где остался домовой / STANDING IN FRONT OF MANY HOUSES plays at the intersection between fiction and documentary film and shows the return of the young woman Natasha to a former home at the coast of Lake Baikal in southwestern Siberia. Her friend Katya accompanies Natasha on her journey with a handheld camera that captures the events.After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Natasha immigrates as a child with her family to Germany. The film begins today, twenty years later, when Natasha returns for the first time to her unknown home. Natasha's time in Baikal Port is mainly structured through her everyday encounters with the people who live there. In different situations, she meets them and gets into conversations about employment and living conditions that are still marked by the effects of the Perestroika. While Natasha gains these intimate insights into different ways of living, she reflects on her own position and tries to make a connection with this place, which is a part of her identity. The cinematic drawing of intimate portraits of people living in Baikal Port as well as Natasha’s play- acting as a returning, identity-seeking figure is accompanied by an ever-present recording camera. It shakes, zooms and focuses, it behaves like an autonomous body. This always raises the question of who is the actual experiencing body of this journey – the person behind or in front of the camera?.

Chile, USA, Germany, Netherlands, Spain 2020, 84 min
by Maite Alberdi

When a family becomes concerned about their mother’s wellbeing in a retirement home, private investigator Romulo hires Sergio, an 83 year-old man who becomes a new resident–and a mole inside the home, who struggles to balance his assignment with becoming increasingly involved in the lives of several residents.Sergio is a Chilean spy. Sort of. At least, he is offered the role of one after a casting session organized by Detective Romulo, a private investigator who needs a credible mole to infiltrate a retirement home. Romulo’s client, the concerned daughter of a resident, suspects her mother is being abused and hires him to find out what is really happening.However, Sergio is 83, not 007, and not an easy trainee when it comes to technology and spying techniques. But he is a keen student, looking for ways to distract himself after recently losing his wife. What could be a better distraction than some undercover spy action? While gathering intelligence, Sergio grows close to several residents and realizes that the menacing truth beneath the surface is not what anyone had suspected.Maite Alberdi’s The Mole Agent is a stylish combination of an observational documentary and a spy movie, with sleek camerawork and wonderfully watchable characters. It’s a unique meditation on compassion and loneliness that will infiltrate your heart and never let go."The most heart-warming spy movie ever made...delightful" - IndiewireProduction companies:Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, ITVS, Micromundo Productions, Motto Pictures, Sutor Kolonko, Voyla Films, Malvalanda, SWR

Germany, Switzerland 2020, 107 min
by Milo Rau

What would Jesus preach in the 21st century? Who would his disciples be? And how would today’s bearers of secular and spiritual power respond to the return and provocations of the most influential prophet and social revolutionary in human history? With “The New Gospel”, Milo Rau is staging a “Revolt of Dignity”. Led by political activist Yvan Sagnet, the movement is fighting for the rights of migrants who came to Europe across the Mediterranean to be enslaved on the tomato fields in southern Italy and to live in ghettos under inhumane conditions. The director and his team return to the origins of the gospel and stage it as a passion play of an entire civilization. In Matera, in southern Italy, where the great Jesus films from Pasolini to Gibson were shot, an authentically political as well as theatrical and cinematic “New Gospel” emerges for the 21st century. A manifesto of solidarity with the poorest, a revolt for a more just, humane world.A production of Fruitmarket, Langfilm & IIPM – International Institute of Political Murder in coproduction with SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen / SRG SSR, ZDF in cooperation with ARTE in collaboration with Fondazione Matera Basilicata 2019, Consorzio Teatri Uniti di Basilicata and Teatro di Roma supported by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Bundesamt für Kultur (BAK), Zürcher Filmstiftung, DFFF - Deutscher Filmförderfonds, Kanton St.Gallen Kulturförderung / Swisslos, BKM - Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Volkart Stiftung, Suissimage Kulturfonds

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

Germany 2020, 96 min
by Lars Ostmann

A melancholy-looking young man in a business suit moves through the everyday rat race in the metropolis of Tokyo. His relationship with the city is complex: he is looking for his life path. Does he feel at home in this city? In this hybrid, essayistic documentary, the man wanders through the busy city center, the suburbs, and the tranquility of nature. He explores twelve different paths on foot, in a contemplative urban symphony guided by his musings and a map. In the narration, he shares his life questions about a meaningful existence. How do we want to live? Where and in what gear? Under what conditions? Can you be happy with just enough? Should you let go of boundaries or should you cherish them?Throughout the film, tempo—high-speed or slow motion—is a constant theme. The visual rhythm keeps shifting, from fast-moving crowds and joggers to extremely slow dancers, shuffling seniors, and the slow, hard work of rice planters. (IDFA Competition for Student Documentary 2020)

Germany 2019, 39 min
by Mario Pfeifer

In the Saxon village of Arnsdorf, an argument between a supermarket cashier and a Kurdish-Iraqi refugee escalates when four men drag the latter outside and tie him to a tree. The police arrive 25 minutes later. AGAIN reenacts the incident, the subsequent trial and investigates the refugee's ordeal. Ten citizens observe and comment on the case, which highlights the blurred distinction between civil courage and vigilante justice.We would recommend Again/Noch Einmal receive a Special Mention. The film was sophisticated in its structure and ambitious in its realisation. Again was also challenging, taking on a fraught issue preoccupying many communities and countries worldwide, one that is not black and white. In setting up its audiences as active spectators, it eschews simple empathy, rather forcing us to engage with our own ethical and political viewpoints. ( Jury Statement for Special Mention, 14 Doc Edge in Neuseeland9'His name was Schabas Saleh Al-Aziz. He came from Iraq where his family had remained. He was 21 years old. He suffered from epilepsy and mental disorders and he was found frozen to death in a forest in former East Germany. Some time before his death, he had been the subject of an intense debate when, during a violent incident in a supermarket, he had found himself tied to a tree by four men—heroes to some, self-appointed vigilantes fuelled by racism to others. This is the event that Mario Pfeifer proposes to re-enact in a studio, down to the smallest detail. Applying the codes of the TV talk-show, action films or even legal staging, he lets everyone speak, using film as the means to hold a trial that never took place, since the judge handling the case refused to investigate it. A jury needed to be composed—ten men and women with only one thing in common; they too left their country to settle in Germany. An essential, contemporary film of unrelenting precision.' (Visions du Réel, Céline Guénot)

Polen, Germany 2019, 79 min
by Jolanta Dylewska, Andrzej Wajda

The film comes to some extent out of a call by Marek Edelman, the former commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising who witnessed the extermination in the Warsaw Ghetto throughout its existence. In 2009, he published a book based on his own experience I BYŁA MIŁOŚD W GETCIE… (AND THERE WAS LOVE IN THE GHETTO…)Why doesn’t anybody ask me if there was love in the ghetto? Why is nobody interested in this subject? Someone should make a film about love in the ghetto. It was love that let us survive.This is how the book ends. Because love in Marek Edelman’s book proves to be the most important value, even more precious than life.And this is what the film is about.

2019, 90 min
by Johanna Behre

Ossi Viola and Lo Selbo have bet it all on one card: as ITACA they make Italo pop music for the 21st century. Their big dream: performing at the music festival in San Remo. An Italian tour could bring them to the next level. The days go by acrimoniously in rundown roadhouses; at night the duo plays dives along the Italian rustbelt. Not quite their image of bella Italia. Suddenly, this gamble seems completely insane. A 9 to 5 life would be so much easier. The crisis culminates when an unwelcome hitchhiker stumbles into their universe. As the dream threatens to shatter, the adventure begins.