Films by Elfi Mikesch

Germany 2024, 86 min
by Elfi Mikesch

The film tells the story of a planned transformation of the former military base Wünsdorf into an ecological campus.Wünsdorf is a former military base in Brandenburg (Germany), which the Russian army had left in 1994. The First and Second World Wars were planned and executed from here as well as the Cold War. The architect, urban planner and pioneer of ecological urban development Prof. Dr. Ekhart Hahn stands up for a sustainable transformation. During the making of the film, the war breaks out

Germany 2021, 88 min

Over two decades after finishing her documentary Gendernauts in 1999, Monika Treut returns to California to meet the protagonists of her groundbreaking queer film. Sandy Stone, Susan Stryker, Stafford and Max Valerio were once the young pioneers of the trans movement and almost all of them lived in San Francisco, back then the mekka for outsiders. Today they are between 50 and 80 years old, and hardly anyone can still afford to live in the city any more. But the energy of the gendernauts and the

Germany 2011, 97 min
by Elfi Mikesch

Werner Schroeter was one of the most significant proponents of New German Cinema. Schroeter was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. At the time, he was working for the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf gallery on a musical piece entitled ‘Schönheit der Schatten’ (The Beauty of Shadows) based on the works of Robert Schumann and Heinrich Heine. For Schroeter, oscillating between hope and trepidation, it marked the beginning of a race against time. In her film, Elfi Mikesch, who photographed a number of Schroeter’s

Austria, Germany 2011, 75 min
by Elfi Mikesch

Cinematographer and director Elfi Mikesch travels from Berlin via Vienna and Graz to her birthplace Judenburg, where she set off in the 60ies to become an internationally renowned photographer and filmmaker. Judenburg findet Stadt is the portrait of a small town, its artists and residents. A film about photography, media, music and the search for images of this town as well as their intrinsic sound. "I watch photographers in Judenburg going about their work, not without moments of slapstick, com

Germany 2008, 48 min
by Lilly Grote

Director Lilly Grotes tour around Europe discovers what it means to children to grow up in the current world. We accompany them down a stretch of road close to them as possible. The film shows their encounters with family and their social environment and discovers a new world that will make them grow strong. Stirring observations from the everyday life of the children are linked to larger social issues. In institutions where children and adolescents spend their lives, we hear disturbing stories

Germany 2007, 105 min
by Harald Bergmann

The German poet Rolf Dieter Brinkmann died at the age of 35 in an accident in London in April 1975. He left behind a voluminous, unfinished work-in-progress that included many hours of documentary film material, audio recordings and thousands of photographs. The film, Brinkmanns Wrath, incorporates portions of this existing material with new scenes shot in the city of Cologne, London and Cambridge. Considered to be in the seventies one of the most important poets of post-war Germany, Brinkmann’s

Germany 2001, 90 min
by Monika Treut (Hyena Films e.K.)

WARRIOR OF LIGHT shot on location in Brazil is a feature-length documentary on Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, award-winning artist and human-rights activist who has gained international recognition for her work with street children in Rio. The film recounts how a woman turned her back on a wealthy lifestyle, driven into action by the execution of 8 streetkids by military police in 1993. In subsequent years Yvonne’s struggle to better the lives of endangered and abandoned children has led her to found

Germany 1999, 86 min
by Monika Treut (Hyena Films e.K.)

GENDERNAUTS explores phenomena of gender fluidity at the end of the millennium in the Bay Area, California. It is a film about cyborgs, people who alter their bodies and minds with new technologies and chemistry, with an emphasis on biological women who use the male sexual hormone testosterone. We get to know San Francisco’s leading gender mixers: Max Wolf Valerio, who reads from his book, Max, A Man; Jordy Jones and his net art; Texas Tomboy and his video art; Stafford, who explores new busines