Films by Jan Soldat

2021, 16 min
by Jan Soldat

The subject of the documentary, an affable gay Austrian fellow named Norbert, sits or stands naked in various poses in his small apartment.Norbert has no penis. Norbert recounts his story matter-of-factly, relating how he was alienated from his penis from a young age, and of his decision to take matters into his own hands and remove it. Nullo is a fascinating portrait of an individual with penis dysmorphia who appears to be much happier and contentwithout the very appendage that provides many men – especially gay men – with their entire raison d'être. (Bruce LaBruce)

Germany, Austria 2020, 17 min
by Jan Soldat

"Erwin has everything he needs in his caravan: Internet, bed, refrigerator, coffee machine. However, he rarely stays in the house next door, which also belongs to him. Filmmaker Jan Soldat comes to visit him. And learns not only of Erwin's sexual preferences, but also of his two great loved ones, the relationship with his parents, his fears. As in many of Soldat's earlier works, the topic of sexuality in “Erwin” enables an immediate narrative addition. An intimate conversation in a confined space, undisguised and literally naked."(Carolin Weidner, film journalist)

2020, 48 min
by Jan Soldat

Heiko, 51, a sheet metal former trained in GDR times, unemployed since the fall of the wall, pisses on his bed and on the carpet. The film encounters Heiko's dysfunctional family history and his decision to be alone forever. Piss and GDR, a reflection of how deep the consequences of the fall of the Wall are still in the bodies of some people to this day.

Germany 2015
by Jan Soldat

A documentary portrait of a self-built prison in which men can be improsened and tortured voluntarily. The inhabitants of the prison system are players in a game that not only reproduces the logic of power, domination and oppression, but makes it his own. The nightmare of adhesive is designed using this method as a parody and pleasure principle.The observational documentary approach that gives ironically the power play his credibility complicit takes part to the fiction of the room. It is only the fictional space of the prison, which ultimately can evoke the stage of a possible freedom.

Germany 2015
by Jan Soldat

Germany 2015
by Jan Soldat

Germany 2015, 81 min
by Marie Wilke

A one year observation of German police training. At a remote location high school graduates are trained to become police officers. Real-life simulations and practice at the shooting range are the preparation for the second part of their training: going out on the streets and face the real world. It’s their first year in the academy and on the beat: they are confronted with an extreme reality. For the first time this documentary gives an uncensored look into the German police.

Germany 2014, 27 min
by Jan Soldat

A three day observation of a German military bootcamp.

Germany 2013, 25 min
by Jan Soldat

Manfred and Jürgen, both in the mid 70s, are enjoying their free saturday. Lying in the sun, working in the garden and struggling. On sunday Rosi, an old pal of them, comes around to join their SM-Bondage-Session. An ordinary weekend in Germany.

Germany 2013, 48 min
by Jan Soldat

Can you describe yourself?” Odenwald-Gay... or Gollum... or Klaus! 60-years-old... gay... slave!”  A documentary portrait about Klaus Johannes Wolf, who de cided to live as a slave. Chained on his bed, he’s telling about his decision to be a slave, his parents and what it means to be naked. Finally he leaves everything behind to go to a slave camp, to improve his slave life and become the perfect servant.

by Mina Salehpour, Michal Honnens

The opening of the first newly-built mosque in the new Federal Lands by the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Berlin-Pankow had been preceded by protests, demonstrations and embittered disputes. Almost ten years later, after Isis terror, “refugee crisis”, Pegida and right-wing election triumphs, the clash of cultures seems to have reached its climax – and the community are planning new buildings in Leipzig and Erfurt, which calls forth the inevitable citizens’ groups …Based on minutes of conversations that took place in 2006, already adapted by Kolja Mensing and Robert Thalheim for their eponymous play which premiered in 2010, Michał Honnens and Mina Salehpour condense the conflict through editing. The authors have created fictitious personae based on the original texts, their characteristics and presentation clearly exaggerated and distorted almost to caricatures. The characters: the Imam flown in from Pakistan, the politically super-correct new Berlin resident from the south of Germany, the former GDR citizen and president of the citizens’ group, the protest-savvy priest, and a German convert. The film creates what has long seemed impossible in reality: a dialogue, ranging from personal motives and backgrounds to the headscarf issue and other principles. Categories of “the good ones” and “the bad ones” gradually dissolve in this construction and give way to a complexity we will have to bear. (DOK Leipzig, Grit Lemke)