Films by Ingmar Trost

Germany 2022, 85 min
by Carolin Schmitz

The basis for the project is documentary in nature. Eight women between 30 and 75 talk about their lives and motherhood. What all the women have in common is the realization that motherhood is a highly ambivalent experience. In the film, their documentary statements are visually brought together in a fictional character - portrayed by Anke Engelke. The actress integrates the women's reports into the laconic narrative about the everyday life of a woman and mother.

Bulgaria, Germany 2022, 114 min
by Ilian Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva

A provincial hospital serving a town with a population of 50,000 in western Bulgaria: here in the Covid ward the eccentric Dr Popov and his team are fighting to save lives. Award-winning director Ilian Metev (Sofia’s Last Ambulance), together with Ivan Chertov and Zlatina Teneva, naturally isn’t aiming to depict human suffering. Their survey of an ordinary Bulgarian hospital environment seeks instead to draw our attention to the country’s obsolete and underfunded healthcare system and, via the various situations they depict, to remind us of our attitudes at the time when faced with an unknown threat. However, the bleak proceedings are offset by cheery interviews conducted in the hospital’s rooms and corridors which show that, even when looking death in the face, people still have a sense of humour. (56 Karlovy Vary IFF, Martin Horyna)With: Dr. Evgeni Popov, Evelina Arsova, Maya Filipova, Daniel Kadifkin, Emil Stoyanov-Chemata

Chile, USA, Germany, Netherlands, Spain 2020, 84 min
by Maite Alberdi

When a family becomes concerned about their mother’s wellbeing in a retirement home, private investigator Romulo hires Sergio, an 83 year-old man who becomes a new resident–and a mole inside the home, who struggles to balance his assignment with becoming increasingly involved in the lives of several residents.Sergio is a Chilean spy. Sort of. At least, he is offered the role of one after a casting session organized by Detective Romulo, a private investigator who needs a credible mole to infiltrate a retirement home. Romulo’s client, the concerned daughter of a resident, suspects her mother is being abused and hires him to find out what is really happening.However, Sergio is 83, not 007, and not an easy trainee when it comes to technology and spying techniques. But he is a keen student, looking for ways to distract himself after recently losing his wife. What could be a better distraction than some undercover spy action? While gathering intelligence, Sergio grows close to several residents and realizes that the menacing truth beneath the surface is not what anyone had suspected.Maite Alberdi’s The Mole Agent is a stylish combination of an observational documentary and a spy movie, with sleek camerawork and wonderfully watchable characters. It’s a unique meditation on compassion and loneliness that will infiltrate your heart and never let go."The most heart-warming spy movie ever made...delightful" - IndiewireProduction companies:Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, ITVS, Micromundo Productions, Motto Pictures, Sutor Kolonko, Voyla Films, Malvalanda, SWR

Germany, USA 2019, 95 min
by Andre Hörmann

RINGSIDE looks at the dangerous, volatile world of Chicago’s South Side from the perspective of two remarkably gifted young boxers and the fathers who train them; as one begins a rising career in the ring, the other serves time in prison. KENNETH SIMS SR. and DESTYNE BUTLER SR. have sacrificed everything in the interest of achieving the same goal: making their sons, KENNY JR. and DESTYNE Jr. boxing champions and thus breaking the vicious circle of poverty and violence their families have struggled against for generations. It’s a fight against overwhelming odds – many try but few succeed – and there are a host of disappointments along the way.  Kenny Jr. is crushed by his failed Olympic bid but with the help of Kenny Sr., he redoubles his efforts and starts winning amateur bouts which draws the attention of a well-known boxing promoter.  The boxing career of Destyne Jr. gets put on hold when he’s convicted of burglary, which his father, Destyne Sr., addresses by campaigning to get his son into a prison-diversion Boot Camp program for first time offenders.  This allows Destyne Jr. to get out of prison in months rather than years, but only if he can withstand the rigors of the program, after which he could then restart his boxing career.  RINGSIDE is told from the point of view of these two hopeful boxers and their fathers as they strive for success in and out of the ring. The film follows them over the course of eight years as they meet with success and failure, overcome hurdles and reach for ever more promising futures.

Germany, USA 2016, 90 min
by Jenny Carchman

Popularly known as ‘the rock star of personal transformation,’ James Arthur Ray, is the subject of this film directed by award-winning filmmaker Jenny Carchman and produced by Allyson Luchak and executive produced by Julie Goldman of Motto Pictures and Jessie Wallace of Shooting Star Films. The film explains how the son of a poor Oklahoma minister transformed himself into a charismatic self-help personality and owner of a multi-million dollar business drawing adherents including the likes of Oprah Winfrey. In 2009, tragedy occurred during an exclusive retreat in a sweat lodge led by Ray in Sedona, Arizona. Three participants died. Ray’s world collapsed. Ray was eventually convicted of negligent homicide, spent two years in prison, lost his business, and was shunned from the self-help industry. The film, told through new, candid interviews, as well as archival footage and photographs, explains Ray’s meteoric rise and fall and captures his attempt to return to the $11 billion dollar industry in which he was once so prominent.

Germany, USA 2016, 86 min
by Kristi Jacobson

Solitary tells the story of men buried deep within the US prison system, banished to America’s supermax prisons and held in solitary confinement. With unprecedented access it goes inside one of these “clean versions of hell” — a supermax prison located in the mountains and coalmines of western Virginia. Inside we meet the men whose stories will drive the film, uncovering the faces and experiences of those we have deemed ‘the worst of the worst.’ Interwoven with their stories are the experiences of the guards, who are doing a different type of time, right alongside the prisoners. They are the sons and daughters of Virginia’s coalminers, escaping their parents’ fate by finding jobs at one of the country’s most notorious supermax prisons. Operating in a world that is invisible to most, and not without danger, their camaraderie is reminiscent of soldiers at war. Solitary is a groundbreaking, emotionally powerful exploration of an invisible corner of the American justice system: the use of long-term solitary confinement in the prisons. With unprecedented access inside a prison tackling the issue head-on, the film explores the experience of those on both sides behind bars.

Germany, Croatia 2012, 76 min
by Ilian Metev

Sofia, Bulgaria. In a city where only 13 ambulances struggle to serve several million people, three paramedics face Kafkaesque situations. Struggling against an avalanche of absurdities in a crumbling medical system, they do what they do best: save lives.