Films by Andreas Zitzmann

Germany 2022, 88 min
by Pamela Meyer-Arndt

REBEL BEINGS unveils the fight for survival of three female artists behind the iron curtain of the GDR. As young women in Cold War era East Germany, Cornelia Schleime, Gabriele Stötzer and Tina Bara were repressed and persecuted by the socialist system and the Stasi for their art and political protest. At the lowest point, they only had cameras and their bodies left in order to express themselves. This film intimately explores their fearless struggle for existence, creative freedom and exceptional artistic works. Almost four decades later the GDR ceases to exist, but its traumatic impact on the artists lives remains.

2019, 90 min
by Natalia Preston

If love is a pill, and marriage an injection with big side effects, then what is the right prescription for girls' self-determination in India today?Set against the city of Chennai in India the film intimately observes the options and perspectives of young women at "Paadhai", a home for disadvantaged girls offering shelter, learning and self-empowerment. Highlighting their insights into their situations, marked by real-life pressures and societal norms, the film's narrative unfolds through a series of storylines as we watch the characters share their personal stories, exploring tough challenges, hope, pain, love and marriage.

Germany, Bangladesh 2019, 96 min
by Shaheen Dill-Riaz

It is midsummer in northeastern Bangladesh. Five men face a dangerous mission. They must conquer the great river with their raft. Their journey will last a month and take them 300 kilometers downstream. Their cargo: 25,000 bamboo logs. During daytime, endless heat, pouring rain and dangerous rapids keep the men on their toes. At night, river pirates lurk in the darkness for easy prey. But it is worth it for the men, who all make the journey as part of their very own struggles for existence. With breathtaking images from Bangladesh, filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz introduces the viewer to the rough world of the men who have been working in the woods and on the river for generations. They only have one goal: get the bamboo to the wholesalers in the capital Dhaka on time.From above, the woods like a vast expanse of lush green that comes in all variations of the color. On the ground, the bamboo forest is much less romantic. Here leeches, centipedes and evil spirits have driven some poor souls into madness. At least that’s what Liakot, the foreman of the bamboo cutters, says. He has been working in the woods since his childhood, when he learned the craft from his father.If you’re lucky, you’ll find Liakot somewhere in this bamboo jungle, where he spends his days cutting down bamboo and digging canals into the muddy ground. Under his supervision, his men build dams made out of bamboo and mud to stow mountain water. Always on guard against wild elephants and the strict gaze of the forest leaseholder, they cut their way ever deeper into the forest, one log at a time. Everyone yearns for the day when they will hop on a bundle of bamboo and surf the rapids down to the valley.WithLiakot Ali, Ali Akbar, Basu Dev, Birbol Dev, Mohammad Shoheedul, Mohammad Hossain, Mohammad Siraz, Mosharraf Hossain

Germany 2013, 86 min
by Eva Wolf

This documentry allows an insight into the mental and emotional challenges the staff of an intensive care unit is facing on a daily basis, dealing with decisions that have far reaching consequences for their patients. Often it is the staff of the intensive care unit - the doctors and nurses - that are confronted with difficult ethical questions that their patients haven't yet had to consider. We regret, at this time, the film is only availiable in german Questions with no easy answers. How do we want to die, and how do we want to live?

Germany 2010, 95 min
by Eva Wolf

Different countries, different customs. Every year, young people from all over the world go to a foreign country to familiarise themselves with an alien culture. What they experience there is sometimes funny and sometimes tragic. But it is always about finding one’s own borders and about finding a place for oneself among foreign people and their patterns of behaviour: what should be understood without having to say it, when people live together? What can be seen as normal behaviour, and what borders on being weird? 12 Months Germany accompanies four exchange students from three different continents living with their German host families allows us to share in their frustrations, their conflicts and in their successes while living in this foreign country. Kwasi from Ghana was sent by his mother on this journey into the unknown, but in the beginning, he is bored to death from dawn to dusk in the provincial East German countryside. Nairika from the USA is looking for real family life, something that she cannot get from her hard working single-parent host mother in Berlin-Neukölln. Constanza from Chile cannot find a way to communicate with her host family despite the fact that they always have a dictionary at hand. And Eduardo from Venezuela, who now lives in Hamburg-Ottensen, is supposed to start reading real German books instead of just the sports section of the newspaper. The film’s director Eva Wolf accompanies these four protagonists through their exchange year in Germany and through their ups and downs with their host families, she shows that conflict can result in real understanding and closeness, not just alienation. Her film is about the tensions that sometimes arise from cultural differences and sometimes just from the fact that human beings are simply different - everywhere in the world. We do not only find different customs in different countries, but also sometimes in the house next door.

Germany 2009, 58 min
by Beatrice Möller

In the new South Africa everyone is equal: Blacks, Whites, Indians and Coloureds. On a train journey on the Shosholoza Express they encounter fragments of their past. Twenty years after the end of apartheid rule, everything has changed but nothing is as it should be. Travelling through modern cities, dilapidated townships and vast open spaces, the film tells a story of inner boundaries, prejudices still not overcome, unfulfilled hopes and simmering conflicts. Everyone is travelling on the same train, but not in the same compartment.