Films by Arne Birkenstock

2024, 99 min
by Enrique Sánchez Lansch

A star dancer at the Cambodian royal court lovingly raises her husband's little brother as her own son. Decades later, as a forced labourer under the Khmer Rouge, she discovers that her foster son is Pol Pot.Chea Samy was an outstanding soloist in the royal dance ensemble at the Cambodian Royal Palace in the 1930s. But she was also Pol Pot’s foster mother. After marrying Pol’s older brother, a low-level official at the royal court, she looked after the boy as if he were her own. They lost contac

Germany 2023, 250 min
by Florian Opitz

The 5 part high-end documentary series CAPITAL B. WHO OWNS BERLIN? tells in an exciting and entertaining way how Berlin became what it is after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has been a hip global metropolis for three decades, attracting artists, freedom lovers and young people from all over the world. But the way there was by no means preordained.And Capital B tells the story of how Berlin’s citizens have been fighting back ever since: against the sellout of their city, its displacement and ag

2023, 83 min
by Philipp Jedicke

Vienna, the former music capital of Europe, has become increasingly relevant again. With the wry approach that is typical of this city, the young underground music scene there romanticizes the raw and rabid. Hedonist and nihilist at the same time, the young Viennese artists embody the opposite of self-optimization. They are unadjusted, eccentric characters – and they are filling concert halls not only in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland. VIENNA CALLING starts with the aim of being a

Germany, Switzerland 2020, 107 min
by Milo Rau

What would Jesus preach in the 21st century? Who would his disciples be? And how would today’s bearers of secular and spiritual power respond to the return and provocations of the most influential prophet and social revolutionary in human history? With “The New Gospel”, Milo Rau is staging a “Revolt of Dignity”. Led by political activist Yvan Sagnet, the movement is fighting for the rights of migrants who came to Europe across the Mediterranean to be enslaved on the tomato fields in southern Ita

Germany, Mexico 2018, 75 min
by José Pablo Estrada Torrescano

José Pablo promised his extravagant grandmother, Mamacita, to make a film about her life, without knowing that this would lead to revelation of secrets, lies and deceptions affecting 5 generations of a highsociety Mexican family.Mamacita is an extravagant Mexican beauty queen living in her own kingdom in company of her loyal servants: gardener, chauffeur, chef, housekeeper and nurses. The 95-year-old lady has turned her house into a castle, hiding the open wounds of a prominent Mexican upper cla

Germany 2018, 96 min
by Uli Gaulke

At the end of Mulholland Drive lies the Motion Picture & Television Fund. Its residents were once the backbone of the Dream Factory: actresses, producers, writers. The spry seniors still burn for movies and entertainment. And so, they share their best personal and professional anecdotes with us.A touching and lighthearted documentary about the glamourous residents of a very special retirement home, including actress Connie Sawyer (“Dumb and Dumber”, “When Harry Met Sally…”) three-time Emmy® Awar

Germany, Switzerland 2017, 100 min
by Milo Rau

The war in Congo has caused more than six million deaths over the last twenty years. The population is suffering, but the offenders stay with impunity. Many people see this conflict as one of globalisation's crucial econimic distribution battles because the country has major deposits of many high-tech raw materials.Milo Rau, one of Europe's most acclaimed theatre directors, succeeds in gathering victims, perpetrators, observes and analysts of the conflict for a unique civil tribunal in eastern C

Germany 2017, 96 min
by Yasemin Samdereli, Nesrin Samdereli

The film of Yasemin and Nesrin Samdereli portrays five couples from Germany, Turkey, India, USA and Brazil. All of them have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary together. Married couples who “made it” and accomplished something that today seems almost impossible: Staying together for a lifetime, in good times and in bad. When these people were “young” many rules of etiquette still existed that strongly dictated how “respectable” men and women were meant to behave. “Male and female” role mo

Germany 2014, 96 min
by Arne Birkenstock

A mesmerizing, thought-provoking yet surprisingly amusing documentary on the life and times of Wolfgang Beltracchi, who tricked the international art world for nearly 40 years by forging and selling paintings of early 20th-century masters. A larger-than-life personality who was responsible for the biggest art forgery scandal of the postwar era.

Germany 2012, 90 min
by Arne Birkenstock

Germany 2010, 90 min
by Arne Birkenstock

Chandani wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a mahout. Her father does not have a son to which he could pass on the family knowledge from many generations. Against the other mahouts‘ will, he decides to give his daughter a chance. He gives her responsibility for the young elephant calf Kandula. Chandani must demonstrate that she is serious about her wish. Because she is the first girl in a male profession, everyone doubts her abilities and the ranger Mohammed becomes her only su