Films by Gesa Marten

Germany 2018, 90 min
by Bettina Braun

29-year-old Lucica, a Roma from Romania and mother of six children, is constantly struggling to make ends meet.Despite the family's efforts to build a better future in Germany, life for Lucica and the children becomes more and more difficult: her flat is too small, the electricity is cut off, they have problems with the neighbours, school and the new language, and Lucica‘s husband and the father of her children is in prison.The film follows the family closely over a period of one-and-a-half years. But closeness also brings expectations.Who needs who here?An unlikely heroine‘s journey and a film about giving and taking.

Germany 2015, 87 min
by Stephan Bergmann

If life was a Romantic Comedy this is the film that makes us want to celebrate it to the end! The last gigolos have gotten grey. But still they are gentlemen, perfect and suave to the sole. They spend their golden years on cruise ships – as dancers and entertainers for solvent ladies of 60 years and over whoare hungry for amusement. Slowly and with a lot of humour, the film reveals that happiness is mainly down to everybody’s individual skill and luck. Some will try and make their dreams come true. And some will never give up dreaming.with:Peter Nemela, Bärbel Schlömer, Heinz Löffelbein, Barbara Maierhofer

Germany 2013, 80 min
by Jürgen Brügger, Jörg Haaßengier

The film tells of land surveyors, self-surveyors, bacteria collection and locality research. It gives insight into the behaviour of German drivers leaving their parking spaces and demonstrates that the shells of tortoises in fact represent the innermost order of the world.Apparently normal citizens at home getting high on weird and self developed statistics, or trying to get a handle on the orderly nature of their bodily functions by means of complicated autoexperiments; researchers using systems of the most varied kinds to vainly struggle against the boundless character of their specialist topic; dubious bureaucratic planning fantasies: is orderliness really only half of existence?

Germany 2012, 89 min
by Peter Heller (c/o filmkraft)

500 billion US dollars in a half-century - and no end to the aid is in sight. Prominent "do-gooders" of the entertainment industry such as Bono, Bob Geldorf, Angelina Jolie and Madonna, pressure the politicians to pump more development aid into Africa. An ever-increasing number of African economic experts and sociologists have begun to criticise this flood of aid. Our documentary film project follows the voices of protest that are being raised in Africa. Working in cooperation with scholars and journalists from West and East Africa, we will attempt to present the problems of development aid from an "African" perspective.

Germany 2010, 90 min
by Maria Mohr

A film dedicated to the brothers and sisters who leave and those who stay – „on earth as in heaven“. BROTHER SISTER is a film about a German nun loving a Spanish saint to-be: Rafael Arnaiz, who died 3 years before Sister Ingrid was born. She only has a piece of his rib as an official relic – and his complete works, that she had translated from Spanish into German. But why a german nun loves a Spanish saint? Sister Ingrid is the filmmaker’s aunt. This allows an intensive look into the world of the Roman-Catholic Church, where she learned to follow her ideas of a rather independent life. Rafael Arnaiz who was suffering from Diabetes already died at the age of 27 lead a life between culture, arts, music, good food and fast cars and his sober Trappist abbey. He was a young, attractive and charismatic young guy who nowadays seems to be a the perfect role model of a “modern” saint. BROTHER SISTER is a very personal reflection on the tightrope walk between wishes and must, between christian humility and the longing for freedom. A film for “happy prisoners” and brotherly/sisterly lovers.

Germany 2010, 80 min
by Jörg Haaßengier, Jürgen Brügger

The film takes us on a journey through urban periphery, which, despite being right on our doorstep, is entirely unfamiliar territory for most of us. Think of the late afternoon drive to IKEA. It is a journey through a characterless and anonymous landscape that appears to express nothing whatsoever. It is as if we had just parked the car on the hard shoulder, climbed over the barrier and fought our way through the brambles to the white areas on our mental street map. The alleged no-man’s land between dual carriageways, business parks, wastelands, flooded quarries and disused railway junctions is inhabited by people who have claimed this territory for themselves, in order to create their own dominion – like archipelagos in an almost incomprehensible void on the borders of the city, liberated spaces full of passion and extraordinary plans.

Germany 2009, 90 min
by Karin Jurschick

"...in terms of language, we participate in the creation of social reality, of the community..." (Framework of the curriculum of integration courses) Since January 1st, 2005 there has been a new Immigration Act in force in Germany. Integration is ordained.Whoever wants to stay here had better get to know Germany: with 600 language lessons and 45 lessons on orientation.The film tracks people from China, Somalia, Afghanistan, Morocco and other countries through their courses: what are they supposed to know in order to be able to integrate in Germany?

Germany 2008, 84 min
by Christiane Büchner

Germany 1998, 90 min
by Dr. Robert Krieg

Our film is about Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe who, as young men and women, emigrated to Palestine in the thirties, under the influence of the Zionist movement, and helped to found the State of Israel. These men and women pushed for a peace agreement with the Palestinians as early as the forties and fifties, at a time when such activity was still regarded as treason. The subjective memories of these nonconformists establish historical contexts of which very few people are aware, providing a fresh perspective. The life histories of the protagonists – and with them destinies of European Jews in this century – come across directly and vividly because of the forceful way in which the protagonists recount their memories and experiences.