Films

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, Great Britain 2026, 15 min
by Daniel Mann

In 1904, European leaders of the Zionist Organisation secretly surveyed the Ugandan highlands as a potential “New Promised Land” for the Jewish people. Supported discreetly by British colonial administrators, who described East Africa as a barren and blank imperial canvas and were eager to rid England of its Jewish population, one Jewish delegate began mapping the terrain, climate and life in Uganda towards a new Jewish settlement. What occurred on that mountain that led the explorer to vow never to return remains unknown. Drawing on present-day film location scouting and an email exchange with an Ugandan scout, The Recce meditates on cinema’s ties to land and its entanglement with (neo)colonial imagination. Through the recce, land becomes vital both to filmmaking and state-building. It is sought after, colonised and constantly reimagined as elsewhere. At the core of the recce lies a potentially violent act: the erasure of one place in creating another. The recce, as this test is often called, is seldom regarded as a film, but embodies this very violence and the ongoing shadow of coloniality in its form. Source of Production

Germany 2026, 16 min
by Vika Kirchenbauer

At a time when elements of fascisation are becoming ever more apparent, ever more pervasive, artist Vika Kirchenbauer takes a personal look at what is in the air in present-day Germany. This Suffocating Now witnesses the historical present as a condition marked by vectors of violence that have continuously and habitually existed, and puts its focus on the fault lines that have most explicitly exposed the illiberal underbelly of a liberal state and society in recent years: Palestine solidarity as well as queer and trans rights. Drawing from a vast variety of source material, the 16-minute essay film flows in an uneven rhythm through still and moving imagery. Observations from the past three years – such as the increased police presence and recurring police violence, which Kirchenbauer captures from her balcony in Berlin – are viewed within a broader German historical framework. Over mundane images of her home improvement efforts, the artist problematises her own social ascent to becoming a university professor and civil servant. This personal reflection serves as an entry point to addressing the intimate relation between state and contemporary art in the German cultural system as a whole. Source of Synopsis

2025, 90 min
by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese

With Ancestral Visions of the Future, filmmaker Lemohang Mosese presents a deeply personal work. Using a fragmented narrative style and mythical images, he reflects on experiences of uprooting and belonging. Appearing are: The puppeteer, a man who grows herbs that are supposed to extend people's lifespans. And the market vendor, a mother who keeps the language of dreams alive - in a city that has forgotten how to speak it. The film also explores Mosese's childhood and his relentless efforts to escape death and wrest meaning from loss. From the dusty dirt roads where he played with cars as a seven-year-old to the gray streets of exile where he dissolved into anonymity, Mosese confronts moments that shook and shaped him. His memories intertwine with the presence of his mother as a figure of vigilance and defiance. But Ancestral Visions of the Future is more than the story of a man who went into exile - it is an elegy for a city and people caught between the weight of memory and the inevitability of loss. And it is a poetic ode to cinema.

2025, 30 min
by Jakob Krese

Hazira survived the massacre in Srebrenica. She has lived in the Ježevac refugee camp near Tuzla for 29 years. She was never able to return to her home village in the mountains above Srebrenica. Today it is located in Republika Srpska, the Serbian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The political and social conditions force Hazira to wait, her days are characterized by routines that ensure survival. She collects firewood, cleans obsessively and defies the harsh conditions of camp life. With black humor and quiet resilience, she faces the trauma of a war that continues to define her life. To prevent it from becoming too painful, Hazira is constantly on the move, always on the run from her memories, but also from the present and the fear that everything could start all over again. This state of affairs is symptomatic of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina today. 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica and the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia. The film is a tribute to all those people who are still suffering from the consequences of this war.

2025, 132 min
by Marcin Wierzchowski

2025, 74 min
by João Pedro Prado, Anton Yaremchuk

2025CPH:DOX2025DOK.fest München – German Competition2025Kraków International Film FestivalA warm film about a hot topic. Is nuclear power the future, or...? The locals of two small European towns throw themselves into the discussion in a film with humor and heart, even though the stakes are high.The climate crisis, Germany’s nuclear phase-out and Russia’s war against Ukraine are just three of the heavy pieces in the dramatic game about the future of energy. A game with global and unpredictable consequences far beyond where the electricity will be coming from tomorrow. And in the middle of the game we find two small European towns with barely a thousand inhabitants each.Gundremmingen in Bavaria is located around a deactivated nuclear power plant, while the small Polish town of Choczewo will open its first nuclear power plant in 2033. What do the good people on the ground think about it all? ‘Fission’ is a stylish film with humor and heart, all of which is a rare sight in films about science, big politics and – ultimately – the future of the planet.Directors João Pedro Prado and Anton Yaremchuk waste no time in their joint debut, which takes a multi-faceted look at the deeply divided debate on nuclear power in particular, fueled by decades of pent-up emotion.

2025, 30 min
by Nana Xu

The “Fruit Farm” is the home of Nana Xu, who is studying in Hamburg - a place that initially only had a number, not a name. It lies behind high mountains in southwest China and in her memory is characterized by dry air, burial mounds, ghost stories, policemen and prisoners. The historical contours of the place are outlined by sound recording, Nana Xu returns to the real place by bus and finds people of advanced age who, perhaps for the first time in their lives, reflect on this very place for someone from the outside. Guochang is the oral history of a non-place: the “fruit farm” was set up as a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution - built by prisoners, including the director's father. Later, all traces were erased. First the place was a mixture of village and prison, then a drug treatment center. A temporary solution as a permanent state for many. For Nana: family history, ghost story, nightmare, dream. Little by little, this courageous film against forgetting and concealment also reveals the ghostly history of violence in the People's Republic of China. An open journey home. Conversations with the last witnesses in their homeland, which is marked by a repressed past.

2025, 14 min
by Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko

In 1970, an entire small town was built in Munich for the Summer Olympics. In addition to the subway station, stadium, indoor swimming pool and housing estate, the largest shopping center in Europe at the time - the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum - was also built. Many migrant workers, so-called guest workers, are employed on the construction site. 2016: Nine people are murdered in a right-wing terrorist attack at the Olympia shopping center. All the victims come from families with migrant backgrounds. 1982: Sohrab Shahid Saless, an Iranian director, makes the film Recipient Unknown in response to the rapidly increasing racism in Germany. In the film, people repeatedly walk past houses, walls and facades smeared with right-wing extremist slogans. The colors flare up brightly and then fade again. In retrospect is an attempt to look back and find connections in the history of a place.

Germany 2025, 97 min
by Martina Priessner

Thirty years after the racist attacks in Mölln, survivor İbrahim Arslan discovers hundreds of forgotten letters of solidarity. The film follows him and his family in their struggle to foster a new, victim-centred culture of remembrance. [75 BERLINALE Panorama]With Hava Arslan, İbrahim Arslan, Namık Arslan, Yeliz Burhan.

Austria, Germany 2025, 88 min
by Chiara Sambuchi

As a child, Alisa survived the Yugoslav Wars just a few kilometres from the border to Bosnia. Her father Sejfo, a Bosnian, and her mother, a Serb, remained in Srebrenica. Sejfo recorded messages for his daughter on VHS cassettes. We accompany her as she uses the material to search for traces of her father and thereby the genocide that took place.

Germany 2024, 92 min
by Johannes Blume

Berlin is teetering on the edge of complete gentrification. The punk movement is fading, and the remaining left autonomous and anti-fascist spaces are facing an existential threat. Gentrification jeopardizes their very existence, eradicating the once vast diversity in Berlin’s urban landscape.The capitalistic structures driving gentrification prioritize individual wealth and financial growth, undermining the importance of solidarity. The squatter scene — or the heritage of it — is the antidote. House communities live in and share what would normally be considered personal possessions: the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room — everything is communal. Activities and conflicts are resolved through consensus, and interaction with others is inevitable. Living in a house community is a full-time commitment, a synthesis of people, work, materials, and history.BERLIN EVICTION aims to rediscover the relevant values of the subculture for today’s society. We engage with people who have a rich history and are willing to speak candidly on camera, free from masks and control. We explore places and individuals that have repeatedly captured the attention of the national and international press due to their fight against the system and eviction, such as Rigaer Straße, Liebig 34, Syndikat, Drugstore, and many more. The imminent evictions of Potse and Köpi Wagenplatz, both iconic symbols of the autonomous and punk scene, serve as the pivotal narrative structure of the film, emphasizing the scene’s ongoing struggle throughout the years.MAX OPHÜLS PRIZE: BEST FILM MUSIC"Quotation from the film: "We had our time and now it's over." Music plays a very important role in this film, it is an expression of protest, anger, sadness and transports the content of the film. With a convincing interweaving of original music and film score, the film tells of the almost lost struggle for freedom beyond conventions and beyond capitalist constraints." say the members of the jury Jide Tom Akinleminu, Wolf-Maximilian Liebich, Andrina Mrancikar

Germany, France 2024, 216 min
by Guillaume Cailleau, Ben Russell

Taking its title from the tactical protest strategy of the same name – "an action that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most effective means" – DIRECT ACTION is a contemporary portrait of one of the most important militant activist communities in France – a 150-person strong rural collective that survived multiple violent eviction attempts by the French state, successfully resisted an international airport expansion project, created an autonomous zone from 2012-2018, and spawned a remarkable new ecological movement in 2021. Through a collaborative and uniquely immersive observational approach, DIRECT ACTION documents the everyday of a diverse ecosystem of activists, squatters, anarchists, farmers and government-labeled 'eco-terrorists' – so as to better understand how the success of a radical protest movement can offer a path through the climate crisis facing us all."The jury wants to salut the very patient and non judgement dedicated approach. We deeply enjoyed the quality of observation of this radical film." Tizza Covi, member of the jury said at the award ceremony.

Germany 2024, 90 min
by Richard C. Schneider

The state of Europe is bad. Right-wing populists are coming ever closer to power or have already taken it over. The fatal thing about this is that we only seem to realize, that a state is becoming autocratic, reactionary or even a dictatorship when it is almost too late. In this two-part documentary, we will look at Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and France, four countries that have already embarked on the path to illiberal democracy. What were or are the strategies used in these countries to destroy democracy - and do these steps possibly also serve as a blueprint for other countries?RISE OF THE POPULISTSRight-wing populists are on the rise around the world and are jeopardising liberal democracies. The issues they use to campaign are always similar: against migrants, against elites, in favour of the nation. Using the Netherlands and France as examples, the film shows how successful right-wing populists are in gaining power. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders was able to form a governing coalition, while in France, Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National party won the European elections and also made gains in the national parliamentary elections. Le Pen wants to win the presidential elections in 2027. The succession of crises is making people increasingly insecure and looking for simple answers: Islamist terror since 9/11, the economic crisis in 2008, the influx of refugees in 2015, the Covid crisis, the war in Ukraine and now the crisis in the Middle East are making people increasingly nervous as they see their prosperity and peaceful lives under threat. Right-wing populists are exploiting this situation by creating enemy stereotypes against which they want to defend and protect their respective nations.EROSIN FROM WITHINWhere right-wing populists are already in power, it is clear how they are eroding democracies from within. They take over democratic institutions and render them meaningless. Using Hungary and Italy as examples, the film shows how right-wing populists operate when in power. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán set the script from 2010 onwards: He changed the constitution, disempowered the judiciary and ruined the free press. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is now trying to do the same. This raises questions for all democratic parties in Europe: Are they able to stand together against the populist threat? Can they make the people of Europe a political offer that takes their concerns and fears into account and thus win back those who have not yet drifted ideologically to the far right in favour of democracy?

2024, 29 min
by Emil Silvester Ahlhelm, Konradin Schuchter

In FAHNENFLUCHT the focus is on the Ukrainian-Russian war. If you’re considered a man, you have only two options in war: stay and fight or leave to protect your life. Not everyone wants to sacrifice their life for their homeland, and everyone should have the right to choose. [64KFF PR]

Germany 2024, 85 min
by Rea Karen, re karen

Fasia Jansen (*1929; † 1997) – a powerful blues singer; daughter of an African king and a German working-class mother – grows up among antifascist dockers in Hamburg. She barely survives the Nazi regime's medical experiments and forced labour in a concentration camp. Yet, after the war, she begins to sing for peace and women's rights. Together with her spouse, Ellen Diederich, she becomes a driving force in the European women's peace movement of the 1980s. Today, she is an identification figure for Black Germans. This documentary is a newly edited version of the film first released in 1987.

Germany 2024, 90 min
by Klaus Tümmler

One of the largest forest fires in Germany in recent decades raged near the town of Treuenbrietzen in August 2018. The fire destroyed almost 350 hectares of forest. Climate change and drought have long been making themselves felt in Brandenburg's monotonous pine forests. Over five years, from the first day of the fire, the camera follows various events on the land. The central question for the future is: What should the forest of tomorrow look like here, but also elsewhere? The Pyrophob scientific research project is launched with the aim of developing more fire-resistant forests. The wolf and other animals reclaim their former habitat over time. Will everything be okay?

Germany 2024, 94 min
by Niloufar Taghizadeh

Once a pop icon, then 20 years of house arrest – and finally an unexpected comeback. The moving story of Iranian singer Googoosh makes her a voice of resistance. We accompany her on her farewell tour.The singer and actress Googoosh has been an iconic pioneer of Iranian pop culture for over 50 years. Her father, an acrobat and artist, already put her on stage at the age of three and she quickly became a child star. Googoosh’s singing inspired Iranian composers to create a new style of pop music, mixing Persian poetry with blues, jazz, Latin, rock and disco music. Her chansons became international hits, and she was a cult figure on the Iranian pop scene in the 1970s. Under the religious regime of Khomeini, Googoosh’s career then came to an abrupt halt in the 1980s when she was put under house arrest and banned from performing. This documentary tells of her eventful life and her astonishing international comeback in the 1990s. It accompanies Googoosh on her farewell tour in 2022. When the young girl Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the Iranian vice squad in September 2022, Googoosh demonstrated public solidarity with the struggle of the young generation of Iranians rebelling against the regime. She is today a symbol of hope and resistance, her life a testimony to the Iranian struggle for freedom and humanity.

Germany 2024, 92 min
by Daniel Burkholz

Heart of Darkness tells the story of the terror attacks on Israel carried out by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Moreover, the film also tells the story of the aftermath of these attacks and of Israel's war against Hamas.When Hannah Arendt reported from the Adolf Eichmann Court Case, she introduced the term Banality of Evil. We think that was only partly correct: It's the Heart of Darkness. We started with the making of the film shortly after October 7, 2023 and we finished it by the end of 2023, to make a contribution in support of the hostages abducted by the Hamas terrorists. (Photos Gaza Border and Tel Aviv Under Attack by Israel Defence Forces, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Germany, Japan 2024, 86 min
by Andreas Hartmann, Arata Mori

Every year, thousands of people vanish without a trace in Japan. Known as the Johatsu, or 'the evaporated,' they abandon their lives for various reasons, a troublesome relationship, mounting debts or threats from the mafia. Some get support from so-called 'night moving' companies, which help people to disappear and start a new life somewhere else. Taking an intimate look at the phenomenon of 'evaporating people,' JOHATSU – INTO THIN AIR depicts the inner conflicts and attempts at reconciliation of those who have disappeared and those who have been left behind.

2024, 82 min
by Jennifer Mallmann

The controversial conviction of six refugees for the fires at Camp Moria marks the beginning of a moving search for humanity – uncovering the dark sides of an oppressive, often inhumane system. In September 2020, six refugees are sentenced in a questionable trial for burning down the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos. The director begins a correspondence with Hassan, one of them. At the same time, a new high-security camp emerges, a symbol of the dehumanizing gaze with which so-called civilized Europe views migrants.DISTRIBUTION GermanyCINE GLOBALhttps://www.cineglobal.de/moriasix/WORLDSALESFEELSALES https://feelsales.com/en/catalogo/moria-six-2/

Germany 2024, 90 min
by Joana Georgi

For her documentary film NEVER ALONE, ALWAYS TOGETHER, filmmaker Joana Georgi accompanies five Berlin activists through their everyday lives for a year. Quang, Patricia, Simin, Zaza and Feline are young, idealistic and organized. They are involved in 'Fridays for Future', 'Deprivatise Deutsche Wohnen & Co.', are fighting in the Berlin hospital movement for better care work and are committed to counteracting racial violence. They look after the community, make political art and stir up social media. By means of Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, they are connected globally and bring their ideas via smartphones to the hearts of their peers. In an increasingly divided and polarized world, they are showing ways out of political lethargy and represent a new generation that is raising their voices, free from thought prohibitions and dogmatic legacies to stand up for a fairer future.With NEVER ALONE, ALWAYS TOGETHER, director Joana Georgi provides an authentic look at the difficult path that activism often entails and directs the focus on the loving, everyday stories of the struggle for social change. In doing so, she breaks down clichés about social movements and creates a hopeful film whose protagonists firmly believe that radical change is not only possible, but necessary.

Germany 2024, 89 min
by Askold Kurov

Putin started the war in Russia long before the invasion of Ukraine. Since 2012, a series of repressive laws have been passed, labelling all those who publicly oppose the official stance as “foreign agents”. In these circumstances, a group of independent Russian journalists and activists are trying to resist and to pursue their work. From the start of the war, however, their work became virtually impossible. Filmed over the course of a pivotal year, before and after the invasion, this new film by intrepid filmmaker Askold Kurov (THE TRIAL – The State of Russia vs. Oleg Sentsov, Children 404) paints a portrait of the last defenders of democracy in Russia and offers a glimpse of hope for a different future. [FIFDH Geneve]

Polen, Czech Republic, Norway, Germany 2024, 92 min
by Konrad Szolajski

A pair of Polish filmmakers travel around Central and Eastern Europe and explore cases of hybrid warfare in this region. They show their investigation and the evidence they managed to produce in Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Moldova and Latvia - the countries of the post-Soviet camp. They do it in a cinematic way, creating a documentary in which they reveal what was supposed to remain hidden.They discover that behind-the-scenes activities of Moscow special agents have been carried out regularly since at least 2013. The full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is accompanied by intensive covert actions in neighbouring countries which are considered next targets. This seems to be a part of Putin’s plan to regain the former Russian zone of influence in Europe.2024 a.o.64 KFF – Krakow Film FestivalOne World Human Rights Documentary Festival 28 Ji.hlava IDFF