Films by Carl-Ludwig Rettinger

Switzerland, Germany 2024, 89 min
by Heidi Specogna

Claudia Andujar escaped the Holocaust as a child and became a multiple award-winning photographer. She travelled the Amazon since the 1960s, and developed a profound relationship with the Yanomami people. From Claudia, they learned to fight against the exploitation of the rainforest and their extermination. Former victims are now activists.

Switzerland, Germany 2022, 81 min
by Maurizius Staerkle Drux

With his gestures and facial expressions alone, the mime Marcel Marceau captured audiences around the globe for decades. But the tragic background behind his work has remained hidden for a long time. THE ART OF SILENCE sheds new light on his life and unique art form, which his family and companions keep alive to this day.With: Louis Chevalier, Daniel Loinger, George Loinger, Camille Marceau, Aurélia Marceau, u.a.

Austria, Germany 2020, 94 min
by Harald Friedl

The simple staple bread has become a branded product with a countless number of varieties and providers. But do we actually know what we eat every day? The film BREAD gives an authentic and unique insight in today's world of bread. We meet small craft bakers who stand up for their quality with sustainable ingredients but we also meet corporate CEOs who professionally work on the daily bread as an industrial mass product which becomes increasingly artificial. How can traditional bakery skills survive? And how will the future of bread look like?

Germany, Belgien, Israel 2020, 122 min
by Carl-Ludwig Rettinger

The Red Orchestra was a most important resistance net in Nazi Germany, which also collected military information. With the assistance of a Jewish espionage ring in Brussels and Paris, they passed it to the Soviets. After locating their radio transmissions, Hitler set off a deadly hunt. During the Cold War, the legacy of the Red Orchestra got ground down between the propaganda of East and West. Two large-scale feature films were launched on both sides, each telling merely half of the truth. Excerpts are now ‘reunited’ to impart the story in full. Furthermore, descendants of the people involved, in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Jerusalem and New York contribute to this first comprehensive filmic account of the defamed resistance network.WithLital Levin, grandniece of Leopold Trepper, ParisRebecca Donner, grandniece of Mildred Harnack, New York CityRoberta Böcker, niece of Libertas Schulze-Boysen, EinbeckYehudit Kafri, writer, Tel AvivDr. Hans Coppi, son of Hans and Hilde Coppi, BerlinGuillaume Bourgeois, historian, ParisSacha Barcza, grandson of Anatoli Gurewitsch and Margarete Barcza, AlicanteAndré Possot, BrusselsDr. Gerhard Sälter, historian, Berlin

Germany 2017, 95 min
by David Sieveking

David Sieveking’s autobiographical feature doc FAMILY SHOTS tells the story of a loving couple and the challenges they face when their first baby is born. Confronted with the extensive vaccination schedule for newborns they realize they do not agree on this issue. To solve their conflict and insecurity David sets out on a research trip to unearth the facts and dispel the myths surrounding vaccinations. Constantly torn between his family duties at home and his investigations David travels through Europe and as far as West Africa to get to the bottom of it. FAMILY SHOTS is both, a tongue-in-cheek family comedy and a profound research into the global impact of vaccination today.A documentary by David Sieveking in co-production with Lichtblick Film, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg., in cooperation with ARTE.With the support of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Film- und Medienstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessische Filmförderung and Deutscher Filmförderfonds/FFA. Distributed by farbfilm verleih.

Germany 2014, 88 min
by Maurizius Staerkle Drux

Gottfried Böhm is widely regarded as Germany’s preeminent architect. The son of a master builder of churches, he is the patriarch of a modern architecture dynasty to which his sons Stephan, Peter und Paul now belong. By realizing prominent buildings of their own, the Böhm fils have managed to step out of the shadow of their famous father. But the crisis in the German construction industry, among other things, has stoked the fires of competition between the brothers. Gottfried, now 94, still contributes daily to current projects. With the death of his wife Elisabeth, also an architect and a source of inspiration for all Böhms, the family loses its emotional lodestone. The film paints an intimate and pointed portrait of the complexity and inseparability of life, love, faith, art and architecture.

Germany 2013, 85 min
by Markus CM Schmidt

European bluefin tuna can grow to the size of a passenger them migrate from the Atlantic to spawning grounds in the Mediterranean. Fact is that tuna stocks face collapse. Yet they are still being fished during spawning season. The fishermen, too, are facing extinction: They can only service the loan debt on their boats by continuing to fish. While some have used questionable means to secure fishing licenses for still plentiful Libyan waters, the rest are left to trawl the already overfished areas. The Mediterranean fishermen’s desperate fight for survival is coming to a head. In the intense images the film tells a parable of hope, disillusionment and desperation. It exposes the mechanisms of a value chain, which is destroying its own basis with a strategy based on shortsighted greed. In the end both the fish and the people loose.

Germany 2012, 74 min
by Regine Dura

 September 8, 1948. The overseas landing stage of Cape Town harbour is crowded with a group of middle aged men waiting for children from  Germany. The fathers-to-be are members of the right-wing Broederbond, stalwart believers in 'Apartheid'. Behind the children’s transport stands an unprecedented adoption scheme: Nazi elite offspring of 'Aryan blood' shall insure 'good genes' and help to 'stay white on a black continent'. The film tells the life stories of Werner Schellack and Peter Ammermann, then 2 and 8 years old, how they struggled to adapt to an unsettling and racist environment and how far they went in their arrangements. On the surface their lives seem settled for a long time, but with the fall of Apartheid, the old wounds open again. A film about the abuse of children in the name of an ideology and their struggle for identity.