Films by Andreas Goldbrunner

2020, 88 min
by Minsu Park

CHADDR is a feature documentary about a 17-year-old girl Stanzin. Her home town in the heart of Himalaya in Kashmir is facing big changes: Global warming and technological progress change the lives of people rapidly. Until recently children had to follow dangerous mountain pass every year to get from their home village to school. It takes Stanzin 4 days to get to school. The times are changing and the dangerous mountain pass will be turned into an autoroute. The director Minsu Park follows Stanzin on her last way to school, before she graduates and leaves her hometown forever.

Germany 2019, 30 min
by Denize Galiao

When Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Denize Galiao starts feeling that sorrow of loss again, her father sighs and says, “Forget about saudade and carry on.” An old Brazilian legend says that the African gods created the feeling of saudade to remind people where they come from and where they are. And that’s just what she’s suffering from. Twenty years ago Galiao emigrated to Germany, where her dream of becoming a filmmaker came true. But the papayas there never taste as good as in Brazil.Galiao’s parents live in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, and thanks to Skype her birth country is never far away. Now that her parents need more support, the sense of dislocation is really making its presence felt. “You are physically present, while your mind is somewhere else.” This short film explores and defines the feeling in various ways, both positive and negative. Saudade is a richly layered film about emigration and identity, and about how culture forms your worldview. Will returning to Brazil liberate Galiao from this feeling? (IDFA)

Germany 2019, 90 min
by Stephan Hilpert

In crisis-ridden eastern Congo, one of the poorest regions on earth, three Europeans are forced to question what it means to help. Raul, a French-Spanish economist, realizes that his project funds are leading his Congolese colleagues into great temptation. Peter, from Germany, is fighting a losing battle to preserve his identity as an aid worker when he reaches retirement age after 30 years in Africa. And the relationship of the young Belgian Anne-Laure is put to the test when her Congolese boyfriend, after a stay in prison, becomes a high-profile regime critic. Deeply personal insights into coexistence and cooperation between Europe and Africa – and the question: how helpful is the help of the West?

2017, 74 min
by Michael Schmitt

In Germany you need the so-called Missio Canonica to teach the Catholic religion in any public school. This legal teaching authorization is only granted by the Catholic Church itself to those who pledge to lead a life according to the moral ethics of the faith. The document can easily be revoked for certain violations of loyalty, for example for those who are openly gay. Therefore my sister-in-law Marika, who had always wanted to teach Catholic religion, has to keep the relationship with my sister Anke a secret.After 14 years of hiding she has to make a decision: to carry on with the job she loves while staying in the closet or to marry my sister and finally come out at her workplace. This rather personal insight into an often neglected issue tackles the question of the connection between church and state in Germany, a country that claims to be one of the leading guardians of human rights, but is it?