Films by Jana Briesner

Germany 2020, 16 min
by Nele Dehnenkamp

Five years ago, Hanan would never have dreamed that she would now be a swimming teacher. Fleeing IS from northern Iraq, in 2015 she crossed the Mediterranean with her family in a rubber dinghy. The boat filled with water, and Hanan couldn’t swim.She has an instant understanding with children who are afraid of water. Images of the vast blue sea and the fear of drowning are etched into her memory. Now living in Wolfsburg, Germany, she’s determined to have her younger brother learn to swim before his painful memories of the water rise to the surface, she says in an on-camera interview, as we follow her timid brother in the pool.The seahorse in the title refers not only to the creature that remains upright in the water, but also to the area of our brain, the hippocampus, where our memories are stored. This balanced documentary shows how water can take on a new meaning over time, and how swimming has become Hanan’s way of coping with trauma.“The magnificent cinematographic aesthetics create a convincingly poetic connection between the sound and the images. The film conveys the oppressive duality of water as a medium of happiness and doom. Seepferdchen gives the protagonist space to illustrate the traumatic effects of flight and how a young person can confront these experiences.” (Jury CIVIS Media Prize)

Germany 2018, 29 min
by Nele Dehnenkamp

Elderly residents of the LGBT-friendly Julie Roger Home in Frankfurt enjoy visits from male strippers, baking transgender Christmas cookies and Sunday dance events with an emphasis on spring fever. At the elderly home, seniors of all sexual orientations are welcomed to express their sexuality during the last days of their lives. The short documentary WE WILL SURVIVE observes the funny, heart-warming and at times delicate everyday life at Julie Roger Home.