Films by Johannes Greisle

2021, 73 min
by Benjamin Rost

The story of the former diamond-diving village of Port Nolloth in South Africa.A desert bordered by a deep cold sea. A torn landscape which hides the purest diamonds on earth deep beneath it. Digging for these diamonds with bare hands day and night, are young men on the frontier of a new diamond rush in South Africa. Hope beckons for the previously drug addicted Vianey who yearns for a better life. Nelson Mandela’s dream urges the homeless cook Patrick on into this new, hopeful future. Only George, the diamond diver, who once was a millionaire, is still hanging on to his memories of a bygone time. A poetic journey through the desert, the wind and the sand. [WS Journeyman]A film in grandiose images and very close to its protagonists speculating poetically around human nature - as well as the power of our dreams.' [DOK.fest Munich, Jan Sebening]'A Portrait on the Search for Happiness juxtaposes elegant cinematography and sensitive storytelling with raw truths about today’s South Africa.' [Encounters International South African Documentary Film Festival]'A heart-warming journey of hope, resilience and the will of overcoming.' [Zubenathi Malothana, Callsheet Africa]

Germany 2019, 90 min
by Hristiana Raykova

The documentary THE PIT revolves around a mineral water pool in director Hristiana Raykova’s hometown of Varna in Bulgaria. Situated right by the sea, this thermal pool is lovingly called 'the pit' by local residents. Sitting in the hot water, they lean back up against the pool’s edge and philosophise about their lives. Here personal and political convictions collide, and tell of both social change and stagnation at the periphery of Europe. (69th Berlinale Perspektive Deutsches Kino)

Germany 2019, 25 min
by Hannes Schilling

50km east of Berlin was once a secret labor camp of the Nazis, of which there are no traces left today. A witness of the time, three ground and monument conservators and two war graves are asked to search for traces on the site. The confrontation with diary entries of former prisoners asks about the consequences of a fading culture of remembrance."A forest in Brandenburg. Digging for traces of history. Preservationists secure the foundation walls of a camp where Jewish prisoners from Theresienstadt were forced to build a branch office of the Berlin Reich Main Security Office under miserable conditions. Other men are searching for Nazi memorabilia with a metal detector. And then there is Mrs. Werner, Christa Werner, who has been living here for so long that she remembers the 'Judenloch (Judhole)' from the past.(DOK Leipzig, Silvia Hallensleben)