Films by Florian Schewe

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgien, Germany 2024, 95 min
by Nelson Makengo

Kinshasa, the capital of 17 million people, is plunged into darkness and insecurity, and its inhabitants are struggling to gain access to light. In a relentless quest, Kudi mobilizes the people of his neighborhood to buy a stolen cable in order to restore electricity in time for the end- of-year festivities. The committee gathers a group of mostly women and goes door-to-door to pay for the cable in the Kisenso neighborhood. At Christmas, Kudi turns into Santa Claus. Flashes of light and hope animate the streets of Kinshasa. At the same time, at Mount Mangengenge, a holy place that overlooks the city, Pastor Gédéon preaches the light of Christ as the path to life and truth. For his part, Davido seeks shelter because his house has been flooded by the Congo River. While observing the city, he sings, between discouragement and resilience. With a community of young men, he kills time by working out, dreaming of a better future. Tongo Saa is a subtle portrait of a population that, despite the challenges it faces, is reinventing itself in an environment that is plagued by violence, coloured by the uncertainty of tomorrow, and immersed in the beauty of Kinshasa’s nights.

2023, 95 min
by Maria Binder

EREN portrays a woman who has been fighting for fundamental rights and peace in Turkey for more than 30 years. As a lawyer and human rights defender, Eren Keskin is one of the main actors and plaintiffs for women's, LGBTIQ and minority rights, opposing torture and sexualized violence. Her strong sense of justice knows no taboos, shaking even the foundations of the Turkish state. Now she has been designated an enemy of the state and has to defend herself. She faces a life sentence in more than a hundred criminal cases and could could disappear behind bars at any moment.

Germany 2022, 96 min
by Cem Kaya

The German Federal Republic’s 1961 recruitment agreement with Turkey not only brought Gastarbeiter (guest workers) to Germany but also their music. Cem Kaya’s dense documentary film essay is a tutorial in Turkish-German recent history that tells a tale of assembly line jobs, homesickness and family reunification, the bazaar in the elevated railway station at Berlin’s Bülowstraße, xenophobia and racism, the wistful songs of the early years and the hip-hop of the post-reunification period. These are the stories shared by musicians beginning with Metin Türköz and Yüksel Özkasap, to the psychedelic Derdiyoklar and the chart-topping rapper Muhabbet. Their music has evolved a long way from that of German bands and has always developed out of the Turkish community and its desires. This is the world of Radio Yilmaz, various music cassette labels, protest rocker Cem Karaca’s German exile, and wedding bands that also sing in Kurdish and Arabic to meet the demands of the market. Extensive archival research and an interest in Turkish popular culture are recurring themes in Cem Kaya’s work. With Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm, he has created a rhythmic and vividly narrated cinematic encyclopaedia of Turkish music in Germany. [72 Berlinale – PANORAMA DOKUMENTE]With: İsmet Topçu, Ömer Boral, Yüksel Ergin, İhsan Ergin, Metin Türköz, Adnan Türköz, Yüksel Özkasap, Cevdet Yıldırım, Ercan Demirel, Cavidan Ünal, Ata Canani, Cem Karaca, Betin Güneş, Aykut Şahin, Fehiman Uğurdemir, Cengiz Öztunç, Dede Deli, Mustafa Çetinol, Erdal Karayağız, İzzet Nihat Yarsaloğlu, Hatay Engin, Yasin Kıran, Aytaç Kıran, Serdar Saydan, Serkan Kaynarcalı, Rüştü Elmas, Mustafa Deniz, Oktay Vural, Orhan Amuroğlu, Ümit Gücüyener, Sultan Korkmaz, Bekir Karaoğlan, Ümit Çağlar, Ali Ekber Aydoğan, Killa Hakan, Kabus Kerim, Derya Yıldırım, Tümay Koyuncuoğlu, Rossi Pennino, Kutlu Yurtseven, Erci E., Alper Ağa, Boe B., Tahir Çevik, Volkan Türeli, Nellie, Muhabbet, Aziza A., İmran Ayata, Bülent Kullukcu, Ibrahim Ertalay, Ilkay Kökel, Mehmet Yozgut

2022, 85 min
by Brenda Akele Jorde

THE HOMES WE CARRY portraits a family torn apart by the turmoil of world history between Germany, Mozambique and South Africa. At the center is the Afro-German mother Sarah. She wants her little daughter to have the relationships she lacked as a child. Therefore she travels with her to Africa, where her own father and the child's father are waiting for her. Meanwhile, Sarah's father Eulidio remembers the almost forgotten history of the Mozambican contract workers in East Germany. [Film Five GmH]Hammer and compass in Mozambique. We see a GDR flag waved at a rally in Maputo, carried by “Madgermanes”, contract workers who once toiled in eastern Germany. Some of them founded families there, like Eulidio. His daughter Sarah grows up with her mother in Berlin. The relationship with her “second home” is slow in growing, partly thanks to Luana, Sarah’s baby, whose father Eduardo is also from Mozambique.Eulidio still remembers the Lubmin nuclear power plant. Today he fries chips in Springs, South Africa. Meanwhile, Sarah only knew her father from a photo for the longest time: rather cool-looking, wearing a cap. She met him for the first time when she was eleven and felt how comfortable she was surrounded by people whose skin is as dark as hers. As an adult woman she decides to spend some time in Mozambique – and meets Eduardo. On the flight back she’s pregnant. This documentary observation by Brenda Akele Jorde deals with Sarah’s attempt to weave together and spin out threads that were torn by the fall of communism. And it shows the challenges this brings: While Sarah is confronted with racism in Germany, in Africa she’s regarded as a German. While once her father Eulidio was expelled after the fall of the Berlin Wall, now it’s Eduardo who sees his daughter only sporadically. [65 DOK Leipzig, Carolin Weidner]

2022, 77 min
by Julia Jaki

Koekie, Fluksie, Zana and Jo-Marie live together in a safehouse in Bredasdorp, South Africa. The small community has been shaken by a series of rapes and murders of women. Social worker Lana O'Neill felt compelled to create a safe place for the most vulnerable women in town. Her activities range widely, from picking up addicts under a bridge to negotiating funding with the deputy mayor. Following Lana, we see how poverty, addiction and sexual violence wreak havoc on the lives of the women in Bredasdorp. The government, meanwhile, is doing nearly nothing to help Lana, and the pressure on her inevitably increases.

2022, 92 min
by Markus CM Schmidt

Popular music has its roots in West Africa, and especially in Mali. In Berlin, a bigband discovers old vinyls from the Malian Bigband era, music which embodied the hope for Malian independence before a coup brought an end to the legendary brass sections. Inspired by these songs, the Berliners travel to Mali to find the heroes of their vinyl-collection. There they research the origins of the songs, marvel at old archive footage and bring back the lost brass sections to play with forgotten Malian stars, leading often to heated arguments over the correct beats, and record an album in Salif Keita's studio in Bamako.

2022, 102 min
by Katy Lena Ndiaye

1960 marked the end of the colonial empires across the African continent. France disappeared from the map, leaving behind the CFA Franc, a colonial creation, which is the name of the currency that still circulates in almost all of its former territories south of the Sahara. How does it come, those countries, once they regained their freedom, never denounced this strange legacy? The film delves into a little-known story that started in the 19th century and continues to the present time.

2021, 113 min
by Jide Tom Akinleminu

A tale about my mother and brothers from other mothers.A reflection on his parents assumed monogamous long distance marriage as well as his own Nigerian background and identity. He thereafter accidentally discovers his father‘s secret; a second family throughout the last 30 years. This revelation sends the filmmaker on a new quest, now focusing on his retired Danish mother and his newly acquainted younger Nigerian half brother. When a farm goes aflame is set in the aftermath of a lifetime of secrecy and denial, and attempts to bring together the stories and beliefs of all protagonists as they come to terms with their common past and shape their future. Moving fluidly between Denmark, Nigeria, Canada and USA, the film gently unfolds as a poetic and psychologically complex exploration of the meeting between western and African concepts of love, relationships and family.202171 Berlinale PERSPECTIVECPH:DOX36 DOK.fest Munich18 dokumentarfimwoche hamburgBFI London FFACHTUNG BERLIN FF – new berlin film award • Ecumenical Jury Award • Special Mention Best CinematographyBiografilm Festival 63 Nordic Film DaysAfrica in MotionSIFF ShanghaiIDFA Amsterdam45 MOSTRA, Sao Paulo AFRIFF – Africa International Film Festival, Lagos

2014, 93 min
by Katharina Von Schroeder (kvschroeder), Florian Schewe

The documentary film WE WERE REBELS tells the story of Agel, a former child soldier who returns to South Sudan to help build up his country. The film accompanies him over a period of two years – from South Sudan gaining its independence in 2011 to the renewed outbreak of civil war in December 2013. As captain of the national basketball team of South Sudan – the youngest country in the world – Agel coaches the team through their very first international match against Uganda. The conflicts within the team bear a striking resemblance to the political problems festering across the country. An injury ends up forcing Agel to leave the basketball team, and he goes on to form an NGO that provides the country’s most remote areas with clean drinking water. His journeys give him time to reflect on his country – on how it was, how it is, and how he hopes it will be one day.As a child soldier, Agel had to kill and also lost almost all of his male relatives. Later he managed to flee via Kenya to Australia, where he became a professional basketball player and returned to South Sudan as a free man. Today, just two years after gaining its independence, the world’s youngest nation is once again teetering on the edge of a precipice: More than half a million people are fleeing the country, and Agel is fighting as a soldier once again.

Germany 2009, 98 min
by Insa Onken

Ben, a young Cameroonian, is sent to Germany by his family to get to know success. Torn between his wish to rise up to his family's expectations and the limited possibilities Germany offers him, he cleaves through Berlin's shady boxing business, dreaming of rejoining his family as a world champion one day. The thoughts about his family, their permanent presence in his mind won't let Ben find any rest. He relentlessly tries neither to lose his family's respect nor his own dignity, while being spurned in the real and dirty world of boxing. Five years later, he finally gets the chance to return to Cameroon. Back there, his view on his life in Germany changes and he realizes that some notions have been altered forever.