Films by Benjamin Kahlmeyer

2015, 19 min
by Benjamin Kahlmeyer

A foggy landscape with new buildings in Eisenhüttenstadt at the German-Polish border: 'Eisen', Iron, that’s how they call the town here. Portraits of asylum seekers from all over the world are set among impressions of a dreary life in a strictly composed sequence of images.A snapshot of a life on hold, somewhere in between hope and uncertainty.

Germany 2015, 78 min
by Benjamin Kahlmeyer

Their arrival in Germany is not exactly a warm welcome: Asylum seekers in Brandenburg are first brought to the initial registration center in Eisenhüttenstadt. An unreal place in the outskirts of nowhere. This is where they will go through the crucial steps of the asylum proceedings in the next three months. Their life in the home is filled with boredom and uncertainty – but nevertheless they have a daily life, a vague feeling of temporary home. THE INVISIBLES accompanies four asylum seekers on

Germany 2011, 75 min
by Benjamin Kahlmeyer

Recorded for all eternity: the ecstasy in Steven’s face when South Africa scores the first goal of the 2010 World Cup. In Extension 11, one of the countless districts of the township of Mamelodi, Pretoria, all hell breaks loose. For a brief moment Steven forgets what he calls the most important thing in his life at some other point in the film: ‘doing business’. A big term for the little kiosk that feeds his family. Set against the World Cup, MEANWHILE IN MAMELODI shows the lives of ordinary peo