Films by Daniel Kötter

2023, 96 min
by Daniel Kötter

Landshaft sketches the psychogeography of a geopolitically charged landscape and its inhabitants between extractivism, war and displacement. In the form of a journey in eastern Armenia, the film follows human and non-human actors as they make their way through the landscape, from Lake Sevan to the Sotk gold mine, occupied by Azerbaijan since the Karabakh War in 2020.With Nune Hovhannisyan, Evia Hovhannisyan, Sona Karapoghosyan, Armen Papyan

2020, 79 min
by Daniel Kötter

The film Rift Finfinnee takes the viewer on a journey through the periphery of Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. In strictly composed images and a soundtrack that interweaves the original conversations in a complex way, the film takes the concrete geography, architecture and the every day life of individual agricultural and construction workers in the east of Addis Ababa (in Oromo: Finfinnee) as the starting point for an allegorical narrative about the becoming urban of African societies on the edge of civil war.with Milkesa Takele, Kokeb Solomon, Tsedeke Woldu, Maheder Gebremedhin and many others

2019, 84 min
by Daniel Kötter

OV Arabisch, Amharisch, Chinesisch, Englisch, Französisch, Portugiesisch, Swaheli, Xichanganawith English or German subtitles availableA journey through the complex web of African-Chinese relations. The economic, political and cultural future of globalisation is taking shape. The dominant force behind these processes is no longer Europe. China and the African states have long been setting the pace. The film documents the many-layered interweaving of China and Africa and finds many different signs of an ever more comprehensive convergence, the forming of a „Chinafrica“. Not just gigantic construction projects and the expansion of Chinese infrastructure and logistics networks are evidence of this new world order, everyday dealings are also increasingly characterized by African and Chinese traditions. [Filmfest Hamburg]

2018, 38 min
by Daniel Kötter

The documentary film Chinafrika.mobile is tracking the life cycle of a mobile phone. From its birth in the mines in the Kolwezi, DR Congo, to its manufacturing in Chinese factories in the Pearl River Delta to its use and death in the markets and recycling dumps in Lagos, Nigeria, the mobile phone camera sends images of its global journey to the viewer's mobile phone display. It was filmed by miners, factory employees, dealers and electronic scrap collectors at the original locations in Congo, China and Nigeria. Four short documentary films show the work on the device that shapes our everyday life.China and Africa act as driving forces for the economic, political and cultural future of globalization and the mobile phone is their important link. Starting with the extraction of raw materials in Sambia and Kongo to the production near the Chinese Pearl River Delta, devices are moved on to Alaba market in Lagos, the largest distributor in West Africa for electric devices produced in China. After use, they are left at African electronic waste deposits. What role, however, is left for Europe? By means of an artistic format ranging between documentary, city tour and performance, artists from Africa, China and Germany open a perspective on the Chinafrican future of capital. Since 2013 Jochen Becker and Daniel Kötter have done research on cultural effects of the economic and political connections between China and the African continent. Their performance Chinafrika. mobile. has been produced especially for Kunstfest Weimar.WITH• Marcel Kapepe, Jean Jaques Kalonji, Paulin Koka, Jerry Mutomb, Sandrine Longolongo, Edmond Mutombo in Congo.• Min Mo, Zehnwei Jiang, Tang Jiandong, Chibuzo Goodluck, Brown, Allyn Gaestel, Boping Zhang in China.• Anthony Bankole, Deola Adekunle, Adeniyi Ojikutu, Bukola Adebayo in Nigeria.

Germany, Egypt 2018, 83 min
by Daniel Kötter, Constanze Fischbeck

Desert View initiated by the theatre and filmmakers Constanze Fischbeck and Daniel Kötter explores residential formats in Madinaty, a new town in the desert, 30km outside of Cairo. The film is the result of a four week long „residency“ experiment, where both the filmmakers and the three-generation family Barakat from Cairo’s informal settlement Bashtil, became temporary residents of Madinaty. Equipped with their own cameras, professional ones and low-fi mobile phones, both „teams“ analyzed from their own perspectives architecture, space, time and every day life style, representing Egypt’s middle and upper class Desert Dreams. A collaborative film on the use of space.The title "Desert View" alludes to Hollywood-inspired names of compound architecture around Cairo and the much-vaunted view from the mansion window, which in the gated communities always points to the artificial landscapes inside the compound and never to the actual desert landscape of Egypt.Madinaty is a fully privately owned city that, unlike a gated community, claims to be an open but self-contained and secure city. All public services are not provided by the state, but by the Arab real estate company Talaat Mustafa.Also part of the project were discursive evenings, to which filmmakers and the Barakat family invited new and old neighbors, architects, artists and urbanists from Cairo to the living room of the villa. Here the different perspectives on the topic "How do we want to live?" were discussed and documented.

2016, 60 min
by Daniel Kötter

HASHTI is a film and discursive project intiated by Daniel Kötter, in collaboration with Shadnaz Azizi, Kaveh Rashidzadeh, Pouya Sepehr, Amir Tehrani. Based on the idea that Tehran itself represents a house, so to speak the inner circle of The Islamic Republic of Iran, the outskirts of the city become the space of transition between inside and outside, between urban and non-urban. Thus the project looks at four very different areas in the outskirts of Tehran: the mountain of Tochal in the north, the area around the artificial lake Chitgar in the West, the construction of social housing called Pardis Town in the far east and the neighbourhood Nafar Abad at the southern edges of the city. By combining Road movie and architectural documentary and by inverting the techniques of inside and outside shots the film HASHTI Tehran portrays Tehran through its peripheral spaces.More Infomation http://www.danielkoetter.de/projekte/hashti-tehran