Films by Birgit Schulz

2024, 104 min
by Doris Metz

Petra Kelly was one of the most influential political personalities of the 20th century, a figurehead of the peace movement and co-founder of the first green party to find success. Her life was one of achievements, its end a tragedy.Petra Kelly was one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century. In 1980, she co-founded the German Green Party, the world’s first green party to rise to prominence. She fought relentlessly for radical social change, disarmament and a society at one

Germany 2023, 90 min
by Julia Charakter

Korntal – a little town in the south of Germany, is the scene of the greatest abuse scandal ever to rock the Protestant Church. An estimated 150 former children from homes run by the Pietist Brotherhood have broken their silence: They are revealing the physical and mental horrors to which they were exposed. Many of them were victims of sexualized violence at an early age. The 9,000-person town have responded to the accusations with disbelief and denial. They cannot imagine that this could have h

Germany 2022, 94 min
by Birgit Schulz

A smart and unsparing documentary portrait of art adviser Helge Achenbach. It starts with him being sentenced to jail for defrauding his clients for tens of millions. The emerging character is fascinatingly complex and controversial, brokering extremely expensive and giant artworks first to banks and corporations, then to celebrity billionaires. It's no wonder his life's story is closely related to the absurd developments of prices for modern art over the last forty years. [FFCGN 2022]

Switzerland, Germany 2020, 104 min
by Luzia Schmid

Prosperity on the one side, misery on the other: just how directly the two can be connected comes to light in Luzia Schmid’s film about the meteoric rise of her hometown of Zug upon becoming a tax haven.Swiss filmmaker Luzia Schmid traces the rise of her hometown of Zug and its townspeople, who have succeeded in becoming very rich by converting their town into one of the world’s leading tax havens. Even her immediate family is implicated in Zug’s politics and economy. And yet a tax haven is also

Netherlands, Germany 2020, 103 min
by Pieter-Rim de Kroon

Silence of the Tides is a cinematic tribute to the Wadden Sea,the world’s largest, and most varied, uninterrupted intertidal area, extending along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.The film plays witness to the rough, yet fragile relationship between man and nature as it pulsates with the inhaling and exhaling of the tides. It’s a hypnotizing large screen look into the cycles and contrasts of the seasons: life and death, storm and silence, the masses and the individual. All set

Germany 2017, 90 min
by Claudia Schmid

In Bangladesh, in Benin, in the DR Congo, yet also in Germany: violence against women is ever present.The film delves into the lives of women who have been subjected to horrific violence, yet managed to fight their way free. They talk about the violence that has been inflicted upon them, their struggle for survival, their hopes and their current attempts to build a new life. And the men? Many of them describe violence against women as a normal part of their everyday lives. If a woman has been hi

Germany, Netherlands 2017, 90 min
by Karin Jurschick

Shortly after 9/11, the US Congress passed a law to protect US airlines from decades of civil law suits and created a fund for compensating victims of disasters who agreed not to sue. Lawyer and mediator Ken Feinberg had to decide how much money was to be received as compensation. He met family members personally doing thousands of interviews. He thought that the value of a life was an easy calculation: how high is the economic loss? How old was the person, but Feinberg discovered that facing th

2016, 90 min
by Claudia Schmid

A film about the unimaginable violence against women in the DR Congo and about the political and social system that casts a blind eye on these atrocities. Women are systematically exposed to the brutal practice of rape as a weapon of war. Claudia Schmid gives unknown women a voice and reveals the structures of violence in all their facets. She spent several months travelling through the DR Congo, meeting women in the most remote villages of the rebel territories and winning their trust. In the c

Germany 2012, 90 min
by Birgit Schulz, Gerhard Schick

A Turkish association in Cologne has commissioned the construction of the largest mosque in Europe - by an architect normally famous for Christian churches. The construction is dividing Cologne residents into vehement opponents and advocates and is also attracting attention nationally. A highly emotional dispute is developing about the integration of Muslims, a dispute which could take place anywhere in Europe. And which is suddenly bringing nationalistic viewpoints to the surface…

Germany 2012, 52 min
by Karin Jurschick

They are charming, they lie without scruples and are capable of manipulating their environment. Psychopaths murder and rape without remorse and can still come across as disarmingly pleasant. What’s going on in their minds? As can be seen in films, art and literature, evil - seemingly devoid of morals and law - exerts a fascination over us. Centuries ago, anatomists tried to open human skulls and penetrate the brain. Today, state-of-the-art appliances enable us to scan brains to make inner proces

Germany 2011, 52 min
by Gerhard Schick

The Marathon des Sables is the world's most difficult extreme footrace: 250km through the Sahara at temperatures of up to 50˚ in the shade. Why do runners put themselves through such torture? Claudia Odekerken has been preparing for the race for a long time. We accompany her during her training and travel with her to the desert. The mixture of fear and euphoria makes this an intensely up close and personal film. During the race it departs from reality and journeys into the runners' inner worlds.

Germany 2011, 45 min
by Peter Scharf, Katja Duregger

A dead soldier's blood-soaked t-shirt; a nun kissing a priest; a gaunt young man with AIDS; all were images used by the fashion label Benetton to advertise its clothing in the 90s. The provocative campaign was the work of Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, a man who brought topics such as war, racism, the death penalty, and the misery of refugees into the business of advertising. His posters set off a storm of indignation throughout the world; in many places they were banned. Toscani's “Reve

Germany 2009
by Birgit Schulz

In the early 1970s, three left-wing lawyers fought against what they saw as the restrictive state apparatus of the Federal Republic of Germany. They defended individuals before the law who had been labeled enemies of the state. Today, one is Germany's former Minister of the Interior, another represents the leftist conscience of the Green Party, and the third is a right-wing extremist in jail for denying the Holocaust. The three lawyers are Otto Schily, Hans-Christian Ströbele und Horst Mahler. T