Films by Beatrice Babin

Switzerland, Germany 2018, 92 min
by Markus Imhoof

“In the end, all that we’re left with, are the memories we built on love.” One of those memories has haunted award winning director Markus Imhoof for most of his life: it is winter in Switzerland, neutral island in war torn Europe. At the fright depot, Markus’ mother picks up an Italian child refugee, to take her in. Giovanna, the girl is called, and growing up with her changes young Markus’ view of the world. 70 years later, again foreigners arrive in Europe. Markus Imhoof has never forgotten Giovanna, retraced her footsteps, lived in Italy, where she came from. And it is here that he now boards a marine vessel, to observe operation ‘Mare Nostrum’. 100.000 refugees have been rescued from the Mediterranean Sea. Through the eyes of a child, he raises the questions that have bothered him, since his mother first brought Giovanna home. After the success of More Than Honey, Markus Imhoof once again shares a very personal story to reflect on a global phenomenon. His questions about humanity and social responsibility in today‘s world are taking us back to the experiences of childhood and first love.

Germany 2013, 120 min
by Volker Koepp

There are two contrasting ways to describe Sarmatia: as a region on the edge of the known world – that's how the old Greeks saw it -, or as the part of Europe where the once carefully measured geographical centre of the continent is. However, you will probably look in vain for Sarmatia in your school atlas, it doesn’t exist as an administrative unit, and Google Maps won't help either. Yet Sarmatia is not a chimera. Volker Koepp travelled there for his new film, generously allowing us to share his impressions and encounters in a both unknown and nearby region between Lithuania and Belarus, the Ukraine and Poland, which borders on the Baltic in the North and the Black Sea in the South. This historic landscape has long made frequent appearances in his work, at least since 1972, when he made 'Grüße aus Sarmatien für den Dichter Johannes Bobrowski' (Greetings from Sarmatia for the Poet Johannes Bobrowski). Like Bobrowski, Volker Koepp recognises it as "that dreamland where all nations and religious would find their place if history had not ploughed it all up over and over again". The rifts left by all this, especially in the people who live there, and how these people still manage to shine from inside, is beautifully depicted here. (DOKLeipzig/Ralph Eue)

Germany 2007
by Mo Asumang

The journey of the afro-german Mo Asumang started when she first heard the song that called for her murder “This bullet is for you, Mo Asumang” sang by the Neonaziband “White Aryan Rebels”. Instead of hiding Mo was driven by her desire to overcome her fears and to find out where this hate against Migrants and where Racism comes from. So she took her courage in both hands and meets Neonazis. She meets them in a prison as well as surrounded by 3000 Neonazis at a Nazirally and make a historical interview with Jürgen Rieger, one of the leaders of the rightwing scene. An intimate look into her family History makes clear how deep racism has already touched the lifes of her German Mother and Ghanaian Father. On her search for Identity, Mo even follows the advice of the Neonazis to “Go back where you came from!” But in Ghana she is seen as a white person. Roots Germania is a riskily Roadmovie between questioning pseudo-germanic ideas of right wing populists and finding Identity and self-confidence as a AFRO - GERMAN. In the end Mo dares the confrontation with the leader of the Neonaziband.