Films by Jamin Benazzouz

Germany 2022, 84 min
by Joya Thome

Whitney is a rising star of the US gymnastics scene, who has a sizeable following on YouTube. Among them is Yara, who lives in Germany and is one of her biggest fans. Two teenage girls live in different continents but are connected by their screens. Whitney Bjerken has a million YouTube subscribers; she creates challenges and posts updates on her training. Yara idolizes Whitney and follows her every move. As time progresses, Whitney starts looking for other sources of content outside gymnastics. Yara discovers a new side to her personality, which develops in tandem with Whitney’s ever-expanding online activity. Joya Thome’s cautionary film about our increasing attachment to social media reflects on the limits of what we can – or should – share online. [29 Sheffield DocFest]

Finland, Belgien, Germany 2019, 79 min
by Reetta Huhtanen

The Molenbeek district of Brussels. In media seen as jihadi capital but home sweet home to the 6 year-old boys Aatos and Amine. Together they search for answers to the big questions. Aaatos envies Amine’s Muslim faith and looks for his own gods, although his classmate Flo questions him; she is strongly convinced that anyone who believes in God is completely nuts.The threat of the adults world suddenly interrupts the children’s play as terrorist bombs explode in a metro station nearby. The streets are filled with tanks, armed soldiers and policemen. Bedtime stories now evoke images of violence and even friendship is put on trial until an expected twist reshapes their lives for good. REVIEWS:The filmmaker has cleverly made a film that puts the magic of childhood in the foreground as a comment to the world around the two boys. It’s charming, it’s what we remember from our own childhood, it’s what a grandfather like me sees so often, it gives hope, doesn’t it? This film will travel the world. (Tue Steen Müller, filmkommentaren.dk)Gods of Molenbeek is a wonderful portrayal of childhood friendship, inquiry and the creation of meaning in a chaotic time. (Göteborg International Film Festival)

Germany 2018, 92 min
by Regina Schilling

Just as the Federal Republic of Germany went uphill, German entertainment television developed so splendidly. And the showmasters took part in forgetting the war and its traumatic events: Kulenkampff, Hans Rosenthal and Peter Alexander. All three fell into the turmoil during the war, Kulenkampff and Alexander as soldiers, Rosenthal as a Jew, who, with unbelievably luck, narrowly escaped deportation several times. Like my father, they belonged to a very special generation: First abused by National Socialism, then harnessed to the hamster wheel of reconstruction, they knew nothing of traumatization, or did not want to know.

Germany 2011, 88 min
by Marie Caspari