Films by Ira Tondowski

Germany 2023, 42 min
by Ira Tondowski

When doctors discover that Leonard has brittle bone disease, they give him a life expectancy of one year. Today, Leonard is in his mid-20s, a screenwriter, director and actor. He gets around in a wheelchair, he is small, his body is different, he lives independently and self-determined, and he says: "I don't hate my body. I find my body annoying sometimes, yes, and I have goals that sometimes go beyond that, but these are still achievable."

Hungary, Germany 2021, 54 min
by Balint Revesz

What does the world’s most watched mega-event and a remote indigenous community have in common? A forgotten indigenous tribe in Borneo is devastated by a merciless logging company. Determined to find the source of the forces ravishing their ancestral forest, three tribesmen take matters into their own hand and follow their stolen wood. This sets in motion a quest which will take them to Tokyo, and the heart of the Olympic phenomenon.

Germany 2020, 90 min
by Sharon Ryba-Kahn

Sharon's relationship with Germany has always been conflictual to say the least, at the same this was something she had just accepted. This is true although, she was born in Munich and currently lives in Berlin. Sharon is Jewish and a third generation Shoah survivor. When her estranged father Moritz contacts her again after 7 years, it becomes an impetus for her to reconstruct her father's family history.  From here on a journey begins in which Sharon, tries to understand who her father is and who his parents were. After having survived the Holocaust her father's parents, who were originally from Poland arrived in Munich, in the American zone. They remained in Munich for the longest time. Sharon travels from place to place, from person to person trying to understand, how has the Shoah impacted her father's family. The past leads her always back to her own life, after all she is living in Germany. Little by little she also confronts her non-Jewish German environment.

Germany, Austria 2019, 100 min
by Marayam Zaree

Born in Evin follows filmmaker and actress, Maryam Zaree, on her quest to find out the violent circumstances surrounding her birth inside one of the most notorious political prisons in the world. Exactly forty years have passed since the monarchy of the Shah of Iran was toppled and the Islamic Republic declared. In the 1980’s Ayatollah Khomeini, the so-called religious leader, had tens of thousands of political opponents arrested, persecuted and murdered. Among them the filmmaker’s parents who, after years in prison, managed to seek asylum in Germany. The family never talked about their persecution and imprisonment. Maryam Zaree faces the decades-long silence and explores her own questions about the place and the circumstances of her birth.She meets other survivors, talks to experts and looks for the children born in the same prison. She tries to find answers to her personal and political questions. What are the personal consequences of persecution and violence when the same perpetrators remain in power while the victims internalize their stories? And what does it mean, politically, to face the silence within the family. The political is private and the private political. With this conviction, Maryam Zaree works through the complexities of trauma and denial.

2019, 45 min
by Nuray Sahin, Ira Tondowski

Nineteen-year-old Ekhlas is a survivor of IS captivity who campaigns internationally for recognition of the Yazidi genocide.In 2014, the “Islamic State” launched a genocide against the Yazidi people in Iraq. Ekhlas was 14 years old at the time and the youngest sister in a family of seven siblings. Her father was killed before her very eyes and Ekhlas herself was captured by IS fighters. She tried to take her life three times, but after six months managed to escape and enter Germany as a refugee. Since then she has campaigned tirelessly and internationally for justice and recognition of the Yazidi genocide − for herself, her family, and for all Yazidi people. She was one of the first to publicly report the human rights violations by the IS to the British parliament in 2016 and later at the UN. Five years on, at the beginning of 2019, Ekhlas’ sister Makboule also managed to escape captivity. We accompany Ekhlas on her journey to the Iraqi camp where her sister has found refuge. An emotional reunion – Ekhlas wants to help her sister grow strong again. We tell the story of a remarkable young woman, a survivor, who defies the darkness of terror with a smile and astonishing determination. (New Docs)