Films

Germany, Canada 2024, 90 min
by Larry Weinstein

In early 2023, filmmaker Larry Weinstein set out to make a documentary about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was supposed to be about how far we have come in the two hundred years since it was written. But when world events pull Larry into his own film, the question becomes a deeply personal one. BEETHOVEN'S NINE is a documentary about music, but also about war and hope. It follows nine unique individuals, including Ukrainian musicians, a deaf composer, a Polish rock star, a best-selling author, a legendary cartoonist and Weinstein himself, as they try to better understand the legacy of Beethoven’s Ninth, the composer’s own struggles, the inspiration music can provide and how humanity continues to look for hope even in the darkest times.With: Gabriela Lena Frank, Keri-Lynn Wilson & The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Brodka, Charles M. Schulz, Leonard Bernstein, Franz Kranke, Steven Pinker, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Germany, Canada 2024, 97 min
by Oliver Schwehm

'Born to Be Wild' made the band Steppenwolf famous overnight and around the world. The song, synonymous with the cult film EASY RIDER, became the anthem of a generation. What’s less well-known is that singer John Kay and bassist Nick St. Nicholas come from Germany. This documentary traces their journey from their war-ravaged homeland to the streets of Toronto to the pinnacle of the music world. [41 FILMFEST MÜNCHEN]

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.

2024, 94 min
by Paul Raatz

Demographic change hits the small town of Loitz [lø:ts] in Western Pomerania with full force. Since 1990, the once thriving community has lost a third of its population – by 2030, it will be half. A future-project led by the Berlin couple Annika and Rolando now aims to counteract the town's demise by creating a place for encounters. A group of music enthusiasts is also trying to see the vacancy as an opportunity and set up a festival. Does it need external impulses like these or has a decisive process of encounter already begun? Infinite Place tells the story of people who fill a dying town with their lives – a cinematic examination of a development that can be observed in many places in Germany and around the world.

2024, 88 min
by Günter Atteln

Recognized early on for her exceptional talent, Joana Mallwitz was Europe’s youngest general music director before becoming chief conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, one of Germany’s leading classical orchestras, in August 2023. Over two years, the film follows her as she embarks on a decisive phase of her international career – with debuts in Munich, Paris, Salzburg, and Amsterdam. At the same time, she and her husband have to reorganize their lives after the birth of their first child.JOANA MALLWITZ – MOMENTUM offers a candid and detailed portrait of the musician. We experience Mallwitz as a perfectionist who works hard, a music mediator, and an energetic orchestra leader. Despite all her success, we feel the enormous pressure that the conducting profession brings with it, which, like a musical crescendo, steadily increases until her inaugural concert in Berlin.

Germany 2024, 86 min
by Dietmar Post (play loud!)

Mona Mur was born in Hamburg and became a leading figure in the German underground scene of the early 1980s. Her career has traversed many musical territories, from post-punk/industrial to electronica, from piano-based punk ballads to hard, experimental guitar music, all with her own signature style. She has collaborated with En Esch (KMFDM), FM Einheit, Mark Chung, Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten), Nikko Weidemann, Dieter Meier (Yello), J.J. Burnel and Dave Greenfield (Stranglers), Ralf Goldkind, filmmakers Monika Treut, Elfi Mikesch, Fatih Akin, photographer Ilse Ruppert, as well as the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. Mona Mur is also a composer and sound artist for films and computer games. The re-release of her early albums provides a good opportunity to revisit her previous oeuvre. Mona Mur answers questions from filmmaker Dietmar Post in a bare studio with a screen showing photos, film and music video excerpts from throughout her career, resulting in a rich portrait of a musician who has followed her own vision and overcome resistance.

2024, 99 min
by Enrique Sánchez Lansch

A star dancer at the Cambodian royal court lovingly raises her husband's little brother as her own son. Decades later, as a forced labourer under the Khmer Rouge, she discovers that her foster son is Pol Pot.Chea Samy was an outstanding soloist in the royal dance ensemble at the Cambodian Royal Palace in the 1930s. But she was also Pol Pot’s foster mother. After marrying Pol’s older brother, a low-level official at the royal court, she looked after the boy as if he were her own. They lost contact when he disappeared into the underground after his graduation. In 1975, like millions of other Cambodians, she was driven to the rice fields. Only after three years of forced labour did she learn that Pol Pot was the boy she had raised decades before. As one of only few dancers, she managed to survive his reign and returned to Phnom Penh as a dance teacher, thus preserving knowledge of the traditional dance. One of her first pupils was Sophiline Cheam, now a successful choreographer. Her ensemble incorporates events from Cambodia’s past in its dance routines. The starting point is a curious fact about Pol Pot’s career, which few Cambodians know about: the connection between Pol Pot and classical Cambodian dance. Artists and intellectuals, in particular, fell victim to the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge, whose leader ironically spent a crucial part of his childhood in the royal palace and gained access to higher education thanks to this dance.

Germany 2024, 97 min
by Clara Stella Hüneke

"Germany has so much bling, why not let everyone in? Why 'women's push-ups' and 'not bad for a girl'?"Over three transformative years, Jamila(9), Rachel(11) and Faseeha(12) of the rapcrew SISTERQUEENS challenge societal norms and battle gender expectations. They live in the center of Berlin and spark poignant questions about what self-determination means to them. Faseeha confronts artistic boundaries, Rachel explores self-empowerment and Jamila questions the role of the police. Together, they craft rap verses that skillfully disrupt conventions redefining feminism one verse at a time.

Germany 2024, 102 min
by Philipp Fussenegger, Judy Landkammer

Capturing Peaches' transformative journey on 'The Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour' in 2022, this documentary blends exclusive archival gems with dynamic tour footage. From stage show inception to riveting performances, it offers an intimate look at the inner workings of feminist icon Peaches, a fearless force challenging gender norms for over two decades. Her biting wit advocates for LGBTQIA+ rights and confronts societal stereotypes, leaving an indelible mark on popular culture.With: Peaches, Black Cracker, Bláthin, Tif 'Teddy' Lamson, Federica Dauri, Natasha Vergilio, Hilary Fox, Bryan Schall, Olivia Oyama, Ixa, Mignon, Leslie Feist, Chilly Gonzales, Shirley Manson, Charlie Le Mindu

Germany 2023, 83 min
by Joerg Steineck

Sam, a sick and struggling country/folk musician leaves Los Angeles behind to revisit his past and his estranged father in Louisiana for the last time. His journey leads him through the fading soul of a country that lived through better days. With the coarseness of a gritty street poem the film reflects the inner struggle of processing non-recognition, loss, failure and the correlation between sensitivity and self-destructiveness.

Germany 2023, 85 min
by Michael P. Aust, Tessa Knapp

Narrated by Irmin Schmidt, a member of krautrock legends Can, the film touches on a number of stories: not just the band that influenced the development of experimental rock and the gravitation towards electronic music. The experience of the Nazi era commanded post-1945 Germany to reject the music of romantic and patriotic pathos so exploited by nationalism. It had to start again: but did anyone know that the research into electronic technologies was preparing a new era of club music, of media sound, of the audiovisual world? Schmidt also talks about his solo work, and there is no shortage of statements by great musical figures. [27 Ji.Hlava]With: Irmin Schmidt, Hildegard Schmidt, Roland Klick, Wim Wenders, Gregor Schwellenbach, Helmut Zerlett

Germany 2023, 103 min
by Sven Halfar

"When I sing, I feel free". And it is precisely this feeling that the film about the Hamburg choir HEAVEN CAN WAIT tells us, in which all singers have to be at least 70 years old to be able to experience this indescribable feeling of freedom. The film portrays the people in the choir who, for different reasons and motivations, have the courage to stand in front of an audience at an advanced age and reveal a piece of their soul.

2023, 73 min
by Julia Milz

The attempt to shoot a portrait of Daniel, an outsider musician, fails when he begins to establish his own terms and conditions. The relationship between filmmaker and protagonist moves more and more into focus and thus their different needs and intentions behind doing this film.

2023, 118 min
by Regina Schilling

At 34, Igor Levit is an exceptional artist in the world of classical music. A young rebel, who - at the piano - transforms into a mature musician. At age nine he arrived in Germany, a Jewish immigrant of Russian descent. Having an opinion and publicly expressing it, is not a choice, it is a survival strategy. The film follows the artist over two years as Levit explores his “life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist. We observe him recording new pieces, his intense immersion into the music, his collaborations with conductors, orchestras and recording artists, his warm embrace of the audiences. And then Covid hits. Having booked 180 concerts all over the world, just to see them being cancelled, Levit is among the first to adapt, establishing a musical lifeline between him and his community on Instagram and twitter. And by doing so he discovers a new freedom, away from the constraints of touring, publishing and marketing.Over the course of two years the film accompanies the artist while he navigates between a traditional career in the classics, his need for activism and an uncertain path as a musician who connects and inspires. [GFQ 4 2022]

Germany 2023, 90 min
by Reinhard Kungel

Jazz is hip! Even young people are enthusiastic about swinging rhythms and jazzy grooves. Yet very few people know anything about the background of this music. What is jazz actually? How did this music come to Germany? And why was it opposed by the Nazis? This film sets out in search of answers and accompanies a group of young jazz musicians who intensively explore the roots of their music. In addition, there are fascinating concert excerpts and interviews with important and, for the most part, long-dead legends of German jazz.Anchored in the present and driven by questions, JAZZ FEVER is a search for traces that is diversified by combining concerts and rehearsals, interviews and archive material in a varied, smart and dramaturgically sensible way. A road movie through the history of German Jazz.With: Peter Baumeister, Hugo Strasser, Max Greger, Klaus Doldinger, Rolf Kühn, Coco Schumann, Peter Thomas, Paul Kuhn, Karlheinz Drechsel, Tizian Jost, Niklas Roever, Hannah Weiss, Caris Hermes, Jakob Baensch, Alma Naidu, Mareike Wiening a.o.202317 FSFF – Fünf Seen Filmfestival4 LETsDOK

2023, 15 min
by Marie Zrenner

Two young girls are drifting in the water of a public swimming pool. The film adopts this drifting attitude as it follows them through nocturnal Montreal and their daily life. Sometimes the two speak English, sometimes Inuktitut. Kathy and Teresa come from a small Inuit settlement in northern Canada. They show each other smartphone pictures of gees and bears they killed themselves. They read about the special relationship between the Inuit and their sledge dogs, which has lost its importance today. Home assignments are done in a park – the scent of the trees reminds them a little of home. They close their eyes. With great tenderness, the camera captures the deep bond between the two best friends who share the same heritage and language. Kathy has written a moving song in Inuktitut. In simple, clear words, she sings of the feelings and yearnings of a young Indigenous woman. [66 DOK Leipzig, Anke Leweke]

2023, 114 min
by Anna Schmidt

LIVING BACH is a unique quest for Johann Sebastian Bach’s universal secret, travelling across six continents to meet amateur musicians and singers whose lives are inseparably interwoven with the composer’s music which transcends borders, cultures, religions and centuries. The film protagonists will all travel to Leipzig in June 2022 for the International Bach Festival. Their meeting becomes an emotional event when they sing together under the renowned conductor Ton Koopman in the 'We are Family Choir' in the Thomaskirche where Johann Sebastian Bach himself stood and made music for 27 years.A film about the unifying magic that comes from Bach‘s music.

Germany 2023, 96 min
by Jan Heck

The film takes a time travel through the underground of the GDR until its collapse. It is a documentary about the punk musician Dieter 'Otze' Ehrlich and his band SCHLEIMKEIM. The fall of the Wall costs Otze not only his enemy imagery, but ultimately his life. [57 Hof IFF]DoP: Fabian Weber, Jonas Eichhorn, Robert Schulzmann, Robert Franz, Martin Kadel, Gabriel Sahm, Johanna Amberg, David Schütz & Matea Buzuk

2023, 70 min
by Stephan Aubé

The German cellist Tanja Tetzlaff performs J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites Nos. 4 and 5 amid natural surroundings devastated by climate change. Beauty confronts its own destruction. Do we really want to watch without lifting a finger?Melting glaciers, desertified landscapes, flooded communities: climate change is having an alarming impact even in Europe. What are we humans doing to this wonderful planet? Aghast at the depredation and destruction of our unique ecosystems, the renowned German cellist Tanja Tetzlaff wants to ask Nature for forgiveness. She travels with her instrument to places in Europe where climate change has already become reality and visibly dealt severe wounds. Surrounded by sometimes bizarre scenery, she performs Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suites Nos. 4 and 5, contrasting them with works specially composed for her by Thorsten Encke. She levels accusations, stokes resistance, and touches us with her virtuoso playing. The beauty of the music stands in sharp contrast to the often-dramatic images of damaged Nature, combatting the finality of destruction. A moving musical and visual plea for greater care and humility toward the beauty of our planet – at once ravishing and disturbing.Recorded at Aletsch Glacier (Switzerland), Cernon Forest (France), Harz Forest (Germany), Lac de Brenets (France/Switzerland), Theatre La Scene (Strasbourg/France), Rhone Glacier (Switzerland), Soulac-sur-Mer (France)

Germany 2023, 92 min
by Lucie Herrmann

A film about the love of jazz, but also about the love of the saxophone, that magical instrument. "I tell something about myself by playing and putting together sounds. That's my story," says Christof Lauer. He is one of the great jazz saxophonists in Europe, was a member of Albert Mangelsdorff's quintet and the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble. He was a soloist in the NDR Big Band in Hamburg for 25 years and has also been a soloist in the jazz ensemble of the Hessischer Rundfunk since 1970.How can the magic emanating from the tenor or soprano saxophone be explained? Who actually makes these instruments? And how did Christof Lauer manage to rekindle his love of jazz over decades? TALKING TO YOU penetrates the musical cosmos of an idiosyncratic musician who rejects any routine and persistently works on new forms. The main thing is that: "it has to be intense"."At last, here is a music portrait that takes its subject seriously and doesn't fade out individual pieces after just a few seconds. Lucie Herrmann, who already created a memorial to the Frankfurt 'trombone world champion' Albert Mangelsdorff with the portrait 'Oh Horn!', and her great camera and editing partner Bert Schmidt have not only succeeded in creating a hymn to one of the most important advocates of contemporary improvisation art with 'Talking To You'. This film is much more than a portrait of a musician. It is a passionate declaration of love for jazz."(Peter Kemper, FAZ, April 21, 2023)

Germany 2023, 106 min
by Tilman Urbach

Alexander von Schlippenbach is a free jazz hero from Berlin who experienced total freedom in music from the 1960s on. The film follows him to the present day and also considers the political background of European free jazz in the spirit of optimism of the '68 movement. In the film v. Schlippenbach meets old companions. He travels to a studio in Cologne where he meets up with trumpeter Manfred Schoof. As they play together they reminisce about the 60s, when jazz was free of any entertainment attitude. Free Jazz was the expression of a radical social utopia. In Dresden, v. Schlippenbach meets the percussionist Günter 'Baby' Sommer and talks about the numerous concerts the two free jazzers played together in the GDR, where they used to be celebrated like pop stars. Here thousands of fans understood the FreeJazz as an expression of freedom. In Borken the label boss Jost Gebers shows his FMP archive and discovers photos and band recordings from Schlippenbach's early days. Also in the scene Gebers makes v. Schlippenbach more clear as a person. The camera observes Alexander v. Schlippenbach not only at home, where he lives in Moabit with his wife, jazz pianist Aki Takase, but also on tour in Munich. Nevertheless, the film TASTENARBEITER – ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACHis neither a pure music film nor a concert film, but rather concentrates on the biographical breaks and disappointments in life, but also on his spirit of optimism that happend to v. Schlippenbach.

2023, 83 min
by Philipp Jedicke

Vienna, the former music capital of Europe, has become increasingly relevant again. With the wry approach that is typical of this city, the young underground music scene there romanticizes the raw and rabid. Hedonist and nihilist at the same time, the young Viennese artists embody the opposite of self-optimization. They are unadjusted, eccentric characters – and they are filling concert halls not only in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland. VIENNA CALLING starts with the aim of being a music documentary. But increasingly, the true protagonist emerges as the city of Vienna itself. Like a flâneur, the camera saunters by day and night through the lanes, bars and casual joints of Vienna, taking diversions, becoming lost only to find its way again. The strolling rhythm is instigated by the music, performed by Viennese artists and their famous charm or "Schmäh". Part documentary, part staged, interwoven with musical performances, the project gradually reveals itself as a mosaic of eccentricity. VIENNA CALLING digs deep into the catacombs of Viennese culture far from the mainstream. With its many performances and semi-fictional scenes, VIENNA CALLING is not a music documentary in the classic sense of the word, but rather a docu-musical. The film provides a stage for Viennese artists like the Turkish-Austrian duo EsRAP, who are first generation immigrants, non-binary rap artist Kerosin95, radical feminist authors Stefanie Sargnagel and Lydia Haider, songwriters Voodoo Ju?rgens and Der Nino aus Wien, and many more. VIENNA CALLING is a poetic approximation to the underground scene of an old European metropolis that experiences the current cultural changes and conflicts of our time. Viennese artists take the room they need for their art in a city that becomes increasingly gentrified. VIENNA CALLING is an homage to daring artists, it is about the hardships of creating art and art's need for space and independence.With: Voodoo Jürgens, Nino Aus Wien, EsRap, Gutlauninger, Kerosin95, Buntspecht a.o.

Germany 2023, 55 min
by Andreas Rochholl, Sebastian Leitner

Two former Kurdish guerrilla fighters reconnect over their shared history and their decision to leave the movement to fight for Kurdish freedom in a different, non-violent way. A story of resistance against the suppression of one's own voice and culture. It is also a story of an irreversible, personal decision to give up everything, and of the courage of women who, like thousands of other young women, went "to the mountains"... only to leave it all behind again years later to exchange weapons for art and activism.Filmed on location in Armenia, Iraq and Syria between 2022-2023

2022, 101 min
by Peter Nestler

The Film presents artists of the Sinti and Roma who shape the trauma of persecution and very personal experiences in their works. They use a wide variety of forms of expression and means, but what they all have in common is an open view.  Peter Nestler succeeds in making this tangible by meeting them without cultural fixations and at eye level.Gitta Martl and her daughter Nicole Sevik read short texts in memory of the Sinti and Roma incarcerated in the Upper Austrian 'gypsy detention camp' in Weyer. All that remains of these people is a series of 32 colour slides. Dr Alois Staufer photographed them in the spring of 1941. Six months later, the detainees were deported to Poland, where they were executed. Author Ludwig Laher dedicated almost 20 years of painstaking research into meticulously reconstructing the victims’ and perpetrators’ lives. Ceija Stojka was an Austrian author, painter, dancer, activist and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen. Her pictures are exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world and can be seen at this year’s documenta fifteen. Ceija Stojka created her own forms of expression, moulded memories and traumas into a picturesque oratory lest these peoples be forgotten. Movie-maker Karin Berger accompanied Ceija Stojka’s creations as a friend and mentor for two and a half decades. She commemorates this exceptional woman, also in her two documentaries “Ceija Stojka - Portrait of a Rom” (1999) und “The Green Green Grass Beneath” (2005).Young author and Roma activist Samuel Mago says, “For my generation, Ceija Stojka is a huge idol.” Lita Cabellut spent her childhood under dire conditions in Aragon, Spain. At the age of 12, she was adopted by an aristocratic Catalan family, moved to the Netherlands in 1980, studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and has since been living in The Hague. As a painter she uses a contemporary fresco technique, designed opera scenography and costumes, such as for “Karl V.” at the Bavarian State Opera. She talks about her work as an art director for Carmen Chaplin’s film about the presumably Roma background of her world-famous grandfather. In the last few years, some things have taken a turn for the better for artists from this minority group in terms of cultural self-assertion. For example, the “Kai Dikhas” gallery and foundation, headed by Moritz Pankok, has organized over a hundred exhibitions and runs a continuous forum.The Roma and Sinti Philharmonics gather musicians from all over Europe for concerts. These have included spectacular premieres, such as the “Requiem for Auschwitz” by Roger Moreno-Rathgeb. Conducted by Riccardo M Sahiti, the philharmonic orchestra took to the stage with performance artist Iva Bittová, cymbalist László Rácz and violin virtuoso Roby Lakatos at the Morgenland Festival in Osnabrück in autumn 2021. Jovan Nikolić tells poetic short stories about his childhood in a Yugoslav family of musicians. “Die Träne” (The Teardrop) is a tragicomic miniature about the memorial service for his deceased father, where they placed a saxophone to the dead man’s lips for the last time.The artists of this minority group avail themselves of various different forms and means of expression, but what they all have in common is an open mind.