Films by Fabian Welther

Germany 2011, 52 min
by Michael Grotenhoff

Africa has the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world. With mobile money, payment by mobile phone, nearly everything can be paid. The continent is gaining ground when it comes to networking and digitization. In Rwanda e.g. 6000 kilometres of fiberglass cable are installed to enable the connection with the World Wide Web and the world. For millions of pupils and students the flow of information, the quick exchange with science facilities or libraries is extremely important. Nevertheless, the gap between town and country still is gigantic, the country tries to overcome his difficult civil war past, especially by means of IT. The film LINKING AFRICA encounters people who back on the digitization in East Africa. They foster determining political and social changes with their developments and engagement in the fields of IT. In Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda the life of digital pioneers changes rapidly: From a chauffeur in Kampala, who considers mobile money as a brilliant invention, to an engineer in Kigali, responsible for the expansion of the fiberglass network, to a young woman in a small Ugandan village, who, as a future doctor, definitely will have to be capable of working with a computer. A film which proves that the stereotype, Africa is a digital nirvana, will belong to the past very soon.

Germany 2010, 208 min
by André Rehse

Humanity is facing huge challenges today: Climate change, ocean pollution and non-renewable energy sources are all pressing environmental problems. But nature provides some sustainable answers. The four-part series ‘Inspired by Nature’ deals with the selected biomimicry topics locomotion, construc- tion, apperception and processing. It shows how scientists analyse complex biological processes, how these results are applied to solutions of technical problems and finally evolve to everyday objects for the consumer. Our host – Janine Benyus, the so-called ‘mother of biomimicry’ – guides us through the series and explains e.g. how the railway system of the UK can be inspired by a slime mould or how lobsters could help finding leaks in underwater pipelines.