Films by Jascha Hannover

Germany 2024, 91 min
by André Schäfer

In 1905, Thomas Mann made his first plans for a novel about an impostor. The first volume of “Confessions of Felix Krull” was not published until 1954. No literary figure has accompanied Thomas Mann for as long as Felix Krull. Both Krull and Thomas Mann are masters of deception. Thomas Mann was a literary superstar with an upper class façade. His world fame meant everything to him – but it cost him an enormous amount of energy to maintain this appearance.Thomas Mann’s diaries reveal an insecure, often depressed man who suppressed his desires throughout his life: Thomas Mann was homosexual. Nevertheless, he chose a married life with six children.The film follows in Felix Krull’s footsteps to Eltville, Frankfurt am Main, Paris and Lisbon – and uses archives, letters and diary entries to trace Thomas Mann’s own journey during the creative process. The work on the novel accompanied Thomas Mann through the Nazi regime, McCarthyism in the USA and the new Europe after the Second World War.In this hybrid documentary, director André Schäfer and actor Sebastian Schneider blur the lines between Thomas Mann and his alter ego Felix Krull, telling the story of a titan of German literature from an entirely new perspective.

Germany, Belgien 2023, 92 min
by Jascha Hannover, Claus Bredenbrock

THE BOOKS HE DIDN'T BURN takes a critical look at the history of Western thought by examining the remains of Adolf Hitler's private library. The dictator and mass murderer owned 16,000 books at the end of his life, 1,200 of which are kept in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C today. The documentary follows American historian Timothy Ryback, who studied these books for almost a decade. While many still confine racism and antisemitism to the ideological extremes in the history of the West, Hitler's library shows that the opposite was the case: many of the books in his library were bestsellers long before the Nazis took power in 1933 – the ideas in them paved the way for Hitler and have a strong impact until this day.Narration by Academy Award Winner, Jeremy Irons.

Switzerland, Germany 2022, 90 min
by André Schäfer

This film is not a classic portrait but a documentary using fiction to bring Martin Suter’s novels to life while introducing us to the author behind the stories on a whole new level. "Fantasy is usually truer than reality itself," says Suter. He strolls through his stories, exposing his protagonists and their secrets – and especially his own, private cosmos. [75 Locarno FF]"The portrait about Martin Suter took four years to develop. He freely talks about his life, thoughts, and tools of the trade." – André Schäfer

2020, 52 min
by Jascha Hannover

Film classics like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago” made Omar Sharif a world star. He was an actor, bridge player, nomad, womanizer and loved life. This portrait shows a man full of contradictions, who loved playing bridge more than the film business and who lived half of his life in hotels.With his son Tarek Sharif as well as grandson Omar Sharif Jr., and among others Steve Kenis, André Ferréol, Zahi Hawass, Catherine Claude.

2017, 90 min
by André Schäfer, Jascha Hannover

"There are three golden rules to filmmaking: thou shalt not bore, thou shalt not bore, and thou shaltnot bore!" Billy Wilder was one of the greatest writers and directors in Hollywood. The man who filmed Marilyn Monroe with her dress blowing up, wrote screenplays with Raymond Chandler and created film history with classics like 'Sunset Boulevard', 'Some Like It Hot' or 'One, Two, Three'.Billy Wilder was a legend in his lifetime and embodies a period of contemporary history. He was successful beyond measure, and became very rich as a result – but he never sold out.Our film rediscovers this cultural figurehead. Via trailers and film extracts from his greatest works, it documents and analyses Wilder's filmmaking. In exclusive, newly-filmed interviews companions and contemporaries of Billy Wilder, such as Volker Schlöndorff, Marthe Keller und Paul Diamond document a century of contemporary history and portray a person who above all was never boring.