Films by Antje Boehmert

Austria, Germany 2025, 88 min
by Chiara Sambuchi

As a child, Alisa survived the Yugoslav Wars just a few kilometres from the border to Bosnia. Her father Sejfo, a Bosnian, and her mother, a Serb, remained in Srebrenica. Sejfo recorded messages for his daughter on VHS cassettes. We accompany her as she uses the material to search for traces of her father and thereby the genocide that took place.

2023, 94 min
by Petra Mäussnest

Jonny, a young teacher from Berlin cannot do his job during the coronavirus pandemic because he suffers from a chronic lung disease. He has to isolate himself and carries on teaching his class online from Sweden with the help of his brother. When the management team of the Waldorf school does not want to support this arrangement, he begins a passionate struggle against exclusion. [38 DOK.fest München, Ina Borrmann]

2022, 120 min
by Vanessa Schlesier, Ronald Rist, Antje Boehmert

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban take power in Afghanistan, and two weeks later the last U.S. Air Force plane leaves Kabul. The military evacuation is over. But there are still tens of thousands of people in the country who need an airlift because their lives are in danger as local staff, media workers, artists or human rights activists. Many of them hope for “Kabul-Luftbruecke” – a Berlin NGO that, on its own initiative, evacuates people from Afghanistan because, as local employees, media workers or human rights activists, their lives are imperiled. Those who have an admission to Germany can turn to the initiative and wait for safe passage to leave Kabul for Pakistan in the shadow of the night. The series documents how former local staff manage to leave the country, how children who were separated from their parents during the flight hope for a reunion and how young women decide to no longer bow to the Taliban’s dictates.

Germany 2021, 120 min
by Carl Gierstorfer

Around the clock, the staff on Ward 43 fight to save the lives of those seriously ill with the Corona Virus. Up close and without commentary, the series tells the story of this struggle in a microcosm that knows neither day or night. Despite high-tech intensive care and immense personal dedication, the staff repeatedly come up against the limits of their human abilities. Time and again, the experienced doctors and nurses have to accept the inevitable and let their patients go. At the end of a long shift, this can often feel like a defeat – and leaves its mark on those who remain.

Germany 2021, 89 min
by Antje Boehmert, Dominik Wessely

The vaccination campaign against Covid-19 represents a challenge of unprecedented proportions for the whole of society and, at the same time, our only way out of the pandemic. Sooner or later, the virus will reach everyone who has not been immunized by vaccination, according to the assessment of leading experts. Over a period of nine months, the documentary film Germany's Race to Vaccinate tells the story of this vaccination campaign: from the initial debate surrounding which population groups should be vaccinated first, up until the vaccination of the general population in Germany after the end of prioritization in June 2021.Beyond daily news snippets, Grimme Award winners Dominik Wessely and Antje Boehmert chronicle the vaccination campaign's central processes and settings in close and vivid everyday observations, portraying men and women who – in very different ways – drive forward the vaccination campaign every day. They are all frontline workers on our journey out of the pandemic.The filmmakers accompany, among others, the staff of the vaccination centres in Duisburg and Stendal and a family doctor in Rhineland-Palatinate. They take an exclusive look at the work of Germany's Standing Commission on Vaccination (STIKO) and consult scientists involved in the struggle to increase vaccination acceptance: Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten and Prof. Dr. Cornelia Betsch. Through the life and work of a photographer in Pforzheim, a crematorium worker in Plauen and a paramedic from the Lower Rhine, the hardships of lockdown and the ethical questions surrounding vaccination are made visible.The film offers a far-reaching look behind the scenes at those tackling the mammoth task of the nationwide vaccination campaign in Germany. In doing so, Germany's Race to Vaccinate presents a documentary panorama of our world in a state of emergency, something often articulated merely in the form of news headlines or statistics.

2020, 85 min
by Sascha Schöberl

“Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – who’s the fairest of them all? “ In a land of “likes” and beauty-obsessed selfie culture, a talented but troubled surgeon seizes the spotlight with live-streamed plastic surgery performances, chasing animpossible dream of perfection.What kind of man erects an eight-metre statue of himself outside his own front door?“Mirror, Mirror On The Wall” is a film about the lofty ambition and lonely inner life of a cosmetic surgeon and self-proclaimed performance artist from China, as well as the women who shape him; the mother whose approval he can never seem to win, his American PA with unhealed wounds of her own, and his remarkably grounded 17-year-old daughter. And then there are the fans. Legions of young women live-streaming every act of their surgeries. This film operates on many levels to bring the depths of selfie culture and the death of privacy into sharp focus.“Mirror, Mirror On The Wall” is an investigation into our beauty-obsessed world, putting selfie culture on the operating table and calling into question the impact it haves on us all – both as individuals and as a society.

Germany, Spain 2020, 81 min
by Dominik Wessely

What began 1989 as a tiny street parade in Berlin has long since grown into a million-strong spectacle garnering international attention. In 2010, the “Love Parade” left Berlin for a tour of the Ruhr valley, German’s former industrial stronghold, a region weak in infrastructure and youth appeal. Hundreds of thousands of electronic music lovers took pilgrimage to Duisburg to celebrate, but the day tragically ended in a fatal stampede. What went wrong?The location of the parade was a former freight yard and the only entrance and exit to the venue was a narrow ramp. There, the crowd squeezed. 21 attendees died and 652 more were injured and traumatized. The Trial reveals the corporate greed and public negligence at the expense of young people from around the world gathering for a music festival. With unprecedented access, the film unravels the worst disaster in counter-culture history.• “Outstanding” — Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung• “Important and valuable” — Sueddeutsche Zeitung• “Thrilling” — Münchner Merkur• “Extremely dense and unbelievably close to its protagonists“ — Der SPIEGEL

2016, 75 min
by Carl Gierstorfer

This striking documentary tells the compelling story of one Liberian community’s fight for survival against Ebola. The film is told from the perspective of those who personally faced the disease, showcasing the ravages, death and tragedy they confronted, but also their struggle to bring the outbreak to an end.With great emotional depth, four main characters from the village reveal their efforts to confront the outbreak and the difficult process of recovering from its deadly reach. Mabel Musa, an ambulance nurse, and her team spearhead the fight against the spreading outbreak. Stanley lives in hiding—he’s blamed for bringing Ebola to their village and is now an outcast. But Reverend Victor Padmore fights to reunite Stanley with his fellow villagers. Tawoo battles the virus and survives, and though his family members succumb to Ebola, he remains strong and determined to take back his life. These compelling stories reveal the human toll of this deadly disease.