Films by Andrea Ufer

Germany 2023, 94 min
by Lia Erbal

Brutal images show the history of the democracy movement in Hong Kong and its suppression. Activists in Hong Kong and in their Berlin exile explain the current political dispute between China and democratic states.The fight for democracy in Hong Kong has long been a battle of systems, as well as a brutal game of economic dependencies. With a collage of found footage, interviews with experts and sketches of the thoughts of young activists, the filmmaker paints a picture of a city between wild hope for change and resignation to the Chinese regime. [38 DOK.fest München, Helga-Mari Steininger]

Germany 2021, 90 min
by Maria Teresa Curzio

The internet giant Wikipedia just turned 20. We take a look at its background and the future of the online encyclopaedia. In 2021, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia celebrated its 20th anniversary. With its philosophy of "knowledge by all, for all", Wikipedia has pushed aside all printed encyclopaedias. In total there are about 50 million articles in almost 300 languages. Anybody can contribute. But little is known about the individual creators of this vast pool of knowledge. What drives them to spend unpaid time at the service of human knowledge? And what happens when authors with a hidden agenda infiltrate the collective by order of states or industrial giants? Why is 85 % of the content provided by the so-called old white men contributing what they consider relevant for the planet? And will artificial intelligence soon take over? A look at the current state of the online encyclopaedia.

Germany 2017, 96 min
by Sandra Budesheim, Sabine Zimmer

It is the culmination of every refugee story that is supposed to end with official asylum and resettlement in Germany: the personal interview with a case officer at a branch of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). The applicant and case officer meet on only one occasion. Asylum-seekers have to provide credible proof that they were persecuted in their home country. BAMF staff are responsible for deciding who stays and who leaves. They rely on the law, their common sense and their conscience. For the first time, BAMF decision-makers in the asylum proceedings offer us an insight into their day-to-day work and allow viewers to witness the asylum interviews which usually take place behind closed doors. They do their job in the eye of the storm of daily media coverage about mass migration and heated debates about the permeability of our borders. They have to find out what is true and what is false, and it is up to them to decide who is still allowed to stay in Germany for humanitarian reasons.

Germany 2017, 52 min
by Marita Neher 

Equal opportunities and the distribution of power – what is the reality in European boardrooms today? In in-depth interviews, we look at the careers of three top female managers from Germany, France and Spain.Do women need a gender quota to achieve greater professional success? In Germany, legislation was passed in 2015 requiring 30% of top management positions to be filled by women. In France, a 40% quota has been legal reality since 2011 with fines of up to € 90,000 imposed for non-compliance. In the quota-resistant country of Spain, on the other hand, career women are still something of a rarity. Even now, there is no political party that would have introduced quota legislation. Quality, it is claimed, is what counts – not quotas. Clichés are rife: women lack ambition and drive and as a result fail to break through the notorious glass ceiling to reach the male-dominated executive floors. Three senior-level managers Anka Wittenberg, Senior Vice President of SAP Germany, Fanny Letier, Executive Director of investment bank Bpi France and Maria Luisa de Contes, Secretary General and General Counsel of Renault Spain, offer us an in-depth insight into their day-to-day life, both private and professional, and speak candidly about European society’s position today as regards equal opportunities and gender-based discrimination.

Germany 2015, 90 min
by Güner Yasemin Balci

In Islam, as in many other religions, sex is forbidden outside of marriage. What does this mean for young Muslims who live in modern, western societies? How significant is virginity for young people from immigrant families? For young Muslims, sexual autonomy is a constant battle against the values handed down by their parents’ generation. This film focuses on psychologist Ahmad Mansour, lawyer and women’s rights activist Seyran Ateş, Femen activist Zana Ramadani and the young student Arife Yalniz. They have all struggled to achieve independence, and had to break with their families and friends – simply because they did not accept attitudes to morality which make sexuality punishable and are still preached in many mosques today, as they were 900 years ago. The film also shows that men are equally affected by these constraints. They are raised to uphold a perception of maleness that declares the man to be the guardian of the female members of his family and obliges him to reproduce these archaic role models. All this has its roots in the demonisation of female sexuality. “If the obsession with virginity could finally come to an end,” says Seyran Ateş, “then so too would this madness.”90min or 58min || German or English version available

Germany 2014, 92 min
by Mo Asumang

THE ARYANS is a personal journey of Activist Mo Asumang into the madness of racism during which she meets German neo-Nazis, the US leading racist, notorious Tom Metzger and Ku Klux Klan members in the alarming twilight of the Midwest. A documentary about right-wing movements worldwide - and their completely wrong interpretation of ‘aryanism’ - a phenomenon which began with French philosopher Arthur de Gobineau and went on with the Nazis. Filmmaker Mo Asumang sets out for a tour de force into the abyss of the political evil and finds out that the Aryans originally come from an area which belongs to Iran nowadays.4.500.000 clicks / watch a short Interview of Mo Asumang on BBC plus Film scenes of her film "The ARYANS"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiTXnKEyecg

Switzerland, Germany 2011, 52 min
by Walter Brun, Dagmar Brendecke

We live in an age of cities. Cities become bigger cities, and eventually mega-cities. Security always means security of the public space. Cameras, sensors and computers should make this security possible, by observing every step we take and by paying attention to the 'divergence from the norm'. But who has access to all this data? Stephen Graham, author of 'Cities, War and Terrorism', can see a data tsunami coming our way, a second, digitally captured city, existing in parallel to our 'real' world, and at the same time a militarily observed urban space. Will we eventually lose freedom in our cities, when daily life is - out of security reasons - observed to the last detail? Does our feeling of 'freedom' change and will the notion of 'privacy' be understood differently in the future? And what will change about the topography of a city and the feeling of people living in it? 'Fear has a 1000 eyes' explores how the threat of terrorism has changed urban life. Remembering 9/11, the film looks forward to changes that are bound to come to our cities, and emphasises the fragile balance between our need for security and our longing for freedom.

Germany 2007, 73 min
by Dörte Franke

The documentary STUMBLING STONE (73 min) is a portrait, a road movie and the story of the largest decentralized memorial in the world. The focus is on the conceptional artist Gunter Demnig, who has set 12 000 names of forgotten Nazi victims in concrete of Germany's and Europe's pavements. The project is declined by members of the Jewish community, Neo-Nazis are fighting it, and in some cities it is illegal. But behind every stone stands a committed helper and private donations. They see a possibility in Demnig's brass-plated stones, to bring history back to people's minds. The restless artist still manufactures and lays every single stone, because he is convinced that this is the only way to take every individual fate back home.STUMBLING STONE is produced by TROIKA Entertainment GmbH, Cologne, and HANFGARN & UFER Filmproduktion, Berlin, and co-produced with NDR/ARTE, WDR and ORF; funded by nordmedia.The documentary was developed at Discovery-Campus Masterschool. The film will be released theatrically in Germany by Film Kino Text on November, 13th, 2008.