Films by Andrew Mottl

Germany 2024, 77 min
by Daria Kuschev

Germany's only Russian Orthodox women's monastery is located in a small town near Munich. Under the lead of Abbess Maria, 13 sisters of international origin live there, following a strict hierarchical order. As servants of God, the nuns increasingly disappear from the normal world, almost as if they had already 'died'. Symbolically, they always wear black clothes.Nevertheless, the sisters also have to attend to worldly matters, such as everyday work in and around the building, receiving pilgrims and, last but not least, securing the future of their convent.

Germany 2023, 72 min
by Sylvain Cruiziat

The Gen Z friends Maxime, Julian and Vilas live in Munich in late adolescent carefreeness – their everyday lives consist of studying, partying and Playstation. Slowly, the three begin to move in different directions, but they all face a common challenge: the path to adulthood. Their special intimacy with each other seems unaffected by stereotypes of becoming men. The three of them naturally cuddle up in the daybed and introduce us to a new concept of male friendship. Maxime will soon leave the group to study abroad. Leaving is hard, but staying behind is even harder.

Uzbekistan, Germany 2022, 14 min
by Daniel Asadi Faezi, Mila Zhluktenko

A desert landscape, as if from another planet. A few lonely, rusty shipwrecks. Low desert scrub grows around them to hold the sand together during the merciless storms. Aralkum, the Aral Desert, is the bare seabed, the last thing left of the Aral Sea.By weaving together different cinematic textures, the short film ARALKUM re-imagines the dried-up Aral Sea, allowing an old fisherman to set sail one last time.'The shortfilm prize goes to a film that opens a door on a landscape swept by human excess.A poetic, political and aesthetic work where words and archives give birth to a sensorial experience on disappearance, loss, memory, oblivion, absence.An unexpected and masterful cinematographic gesture that questions our humanity. [Jury Statement 53 VdR]'A film that combines a unique mix of documentary and experimental form. A warning story about the uncontrolled range that a human intervention to the environmental balance can take. A new cinematic reality very well constructed by the authors,  in an impressive movie. The Special Jury Award is bestowed to Aralkum.' [Jury Statement DRAMA ISFF]

Germany 2021, 81 min
by Erec Brehmer

For filmmaker Erec Brehmer, a world collapses when his longtime partner Angelina Zeidler dies in a common car accident. With the help of amateur videos, voice messages, diary entries and music they listened to together, he sets out to find places and situations in which he can meet his deceased girlfriend again. The result is not only a powerful, authentic document of coming to terms with grief, but also a sensual invitation to life.A story about identity after the loss of a loved one. (36 DOK.fest Munich)

Germany 2020, 94 min
by Lea Becker

Winning medals for Germany – that's the dream of Celia, Fillip and Umito. The teenagers are competitive athletes living at a boarding home in a small mountain village in Germany. Far away from their friends and families they train daily to make it to the very top of the podium.As members of the National Snowboardcross team they fight through long and hard winter seasons. Races, exams and injuries – they master it all, while going through puberty. How many sacrifices does it take to build a successful athlete's career?

Germany 2020, 73 min
by Michael Kranz

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

2019, 8 min
by Daniel Asadi Faezi

The dried tears of Lake Urmia in northern Iran are for sale – salt in plastic bags at the roadside. Once the biggest lake in the Middle East, only a fraction of it is left today. This is its elegy, presenting both its former splendour and its state today. Wavering between factuality and melancholy, the film finally opts for a pessimistic view of society. The dying lake becomes a symbol. (DOK Leipzig, Carolin Weidner)Jury Statement Innsbruck Nature FF:“A love poem, a love song to a place that disappeared – once one of the biggest lakes in the Middle East, vanished and turned almost complete into a salt desert – lake Urmia. This poetic essay embarks from the former crowded shores back in the time, when there still was water, and leads us to recent images of the scenery. The young filmmaker Daniel Asadi Faezi visualizes the mourning by arranging playful but gently the images and brings Urmia for a glimpse of the moment back to life but let us its loss resonates long after.”