Films by Benjamin Schindler

Germany 2021, 22 min
by Jan Wilde

Two police officers arrive at a crime scene where they find a group of people around a man who is tied to a tree. They demand their statements one by one. In flashbacks from the point of view of the different people the film tells the story of a self-proclaimed vigilante group. Daniel Wörth,Christian Schramm as well as the local politician Holger Arndt forcibly removed young Tunisian Karim from a supermarket after the employee Juliane Giess has accused him of shop lifting. In the parking lot in front of the store they tie Karim to a tree, harass him and do not let go of him until they found the stolen goods. Little by little, however, they become more relentless in order to achieve their goal. Only Mrs. Urban who is walking by accidentally intervenes and sides with Karim.While the men claim to have acted out of moral courage Mrs. Urban accuses them of racist violence. A conflict unfolds that puts the communitie's social stability to the test. The film takes an experimental turn when original social media chats are inserted and comment on what is shown on screen. The setting is an artificial theatrical environment which aims to render racism as a universal phenomenon.

Germany 2019, 88 min
by Benjamin Schindler

A poetic time travel fantasy through the imagined history of the United States as a modern fairyland, along the traces of our desire for illusion and escapism – fatally bound between fact and fiction, anticipating the current reality shifts in the US.PLAYLAND USA questions the possibilities and limits of the representation of history and is a self-reflection regarding film as a medium. The film asks essential questions: What is seeing? How do we see the world? And: What is invisible, for us, for others?The film draws a line in cinematic images from Noah’s Ark to the colonization of Mars, including dinosaurs, Indians, and superheroes, of course. It becomes increasingly clear that Benjamin Schindler has made many „American Dreams“ into an „American Nightmare“, inscribing quotes of pop culture and Hollywood into a biblical history. When the film recounts the shooting at the Batman premiere in Aurora, reality and fiction have finally merged.