Films by Eckart Gadow

Germany 2021, 119 min
by Manuel Fenn

Spring 2020. Suddenly the world stands still. On every continent, people find themselves in a lockdown. The world as we know it is has suddenly changed. What will come next is uncertain.Filmed over a year in twelve different locations, from the Amazon to Kuala Lumpa, Nairobi to New York, this film profiles the year when everything changed. Stories of hope and despair, empathy and ignorance, resilience and a feeling that everyone has had to face: the sense of our own mortality. Twelve intimate portraits from twelve places in a fragile world.The residents of an indigenous village in the Amazon seal themselves and construct a building for the infected. A mother sees her baby taking its first steps and longs for her family. A married couple, on the brink of separating, are forced to isolate together. A homeless pizza delivery man tries to find a place to live while navigating covid controls. A young woman returns to the world of her ultra-orthodox childhood. A nurse buries an old woman in a foreign country.Twelve stories about the resilience of humanity in a world beyond silence. [Java Films Paris/London]Filmed byTakuma Kuikuro in Alto Xingu, Gundula Beckmann in Haifa, Yihwen Chen in Kuala Lumpur, Dimitri Pervushin in Moscow, Joseph Mucheru in Nairobi, Victor Magrath in Rio de Janero, Julio Weiss in Cochamba, Manuel Fenn, Sophia Fenn in Berlin, Agostina Gualá in London, Ali Mohamed Ghasemi in Nasschfabad, Valerio Ciriaci in New York.

Germany, Bangladesh 2019, 96 min
by Shaheen Dill-Riaz

It is midsummer in northeastern Bangladesh. Five men face a dangerous mission. They must conquer the great river with their raft. Their journey will last a month and take them 300 kilometers downstream. Their cargo: 25,000 bamboo logs. During daytime, endless heat, pouring rain and dangerous rapids keep the men on their toes. At night, river pirates lurk in the darkness for easy prey. But it is worth it for the men, who all make the journey as part of their very own struggles for existence. With breathtaking images from Bangladesh, filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz introduces the viewer to the rough world of the men who have been working in the woods and on the river for generations. They only have one goal: get the bamboo to the wholesalers in the capital Dhaka on time.From above, the woods like a vast expanse of lush green that comes in all variations of the color. On the ground, the bamboo forest is much less romantic. Here leeches, centipedes and evil spirits have driven some poor souls into madness. At least that’s what Liakot, the foreman of the bamboo cutters, says. He has been working in the woods since his childhood, when he learned the craft from his father.If you’re lucky, you’ll find Liakot somewhere in this bamboo jungle, where he spends his days cutting down bamboo and digging canals into the muddy ground. Under his supervision, his men build dams made out of bamboo and mud to stow mountain water. Always on guard against wild elephants and the strict gaze of the forest leaseholder, they cut their way ever deeper into the forest, one log at a time. Everyone yearns for the day when they will hop on a bundle of bamboo and surf the rapids down to the valley.WithLiakot Ali, Ali Akbar, Basu Dev, Birbol Dev, Mohammad Shoheedul, Mohammad Hossain, Mohammad Siraz, Mosharraf Hossain

Germany 2015, 90 min
by Stefan Eberlein

A Chinese investor buys the regional airport of Parchim in provincial north Germany to turn it into a hub for international cargo and passenger transport. Sheer megalomania or enviable drive and enthusiasm?In 2007 Chinese investor Jonathan Pang bought an old military airport in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, northern Germany. In the small town of Parchim, he wants to create an international hub for air cargo transport between China, Europe and Africa. Mr Pang plans no less than to reroute international commodity flows and turn Parchim into a new centre of globalisation. But is this idea compatible with the north German provinces? The unemployment rate is high, the airport has laid idle for 17 years. A container on stilts acts as a temporary control tower, the runway is crumbling and staff speak no English. While Jonathan Pang’s German adviser Werner Knan gets increasingly bogged down by German bureaucracy, Mr Pang travels the world and with unfailing optimism endeavours to win the support of others for his undertaking. The filmmakers accompanied the investor over a period of seven years, encountering wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs, a German district administrator, a networking member of parliament and finally visiting Mr. Pangs home town in the remote Chinese province of Henan. Will he succeed in turning Parchim into a new centre of global trade?

Germany 2013, 86 min
by Eva Wolf

This documentry allows an insight into the mental and emotional challenges the staff of an intensive care unit is facing on a daily basis, dealing with decisions that have far reaching consequences for their patients. Often it is the staff of the intensive care unit - the doctors and nurses - that are confronted with difficult ethical questions that their patients haven't yet had to consider. We regret, at this time, the film is only availiable in german Questions with no easy answers. How do we want to die, and how do we want to live?

Germany 2012, 70 min
by Beatrice Möller

Any instructions on how to be a woman these days? Everything seems possible for the thirty-somethings tackling their lives today, as the globalized world offers a myriad of options - more than ever before. On the flip side, the certainties we used to lean on have become alarmingly shaky: Wedding rings don’t actually possess love-preserving magic powers; a university degree does not necessarily come with a job offer - and let’s just not speak of retirement provisions. Past generations’ gender roles and concepts of living are no longer valid for their daughters - and mothers, half admiringly, half doubtfully, watch their thirty-year-olds plough their way through the overwhelming choices freedom offers them. Over a period of three years, director Beatrice Möller followed three of those young women on their individual search for the 'right' way to live their lives. Actress Marie-Sarah is always on the go – moving house for the 29th time has not made her come home. She longs to live many lives at once, but struggles with professional and financial insecurity. Claudia, whose parents worry whether their free-lance journalist daughter’s life isn’t too inefficient and aimless, throws herself into the adventure of starting a family. And Mona, having grown up in Palestine, enjoys the liberties she has fought for - until a disease confronts her with the question her contemporaries tend to delay again and again: How long do I have to make my decisions? In their pursuit of happiness, all three of them hover between the desire to find some calm, and the fear of tying themselves down too early – between opportunities, doubts, and the pressure of time. Interlaced with dialogue between mothers and daughters, Beatrice`s film draws a sensitive image of a generation of women who, like none before them, can shape their lives according to their own desires.