Films by Julia Wiedwald

Germany 2022, 66 min
by Mila Teshaieva, Marcus Lenz

By the time Russian army retreated from Bucha, Borodyanka, Irpin, houses were destroyed, civilians executed, and lives ruined. From the moment when they emerge from their shelters over the course of many weeks, the films follows various residents as they pick themselves up from the smoldering ruins. The dead are identified, debris is cleared, and prosecutors start talking about a war tribunal. But as the first blossoms of spring start appearing, these Ukrainians also reveal their resilience. Human spirit overcomes war and death.

Germany 2020, 104 min
by Jana Matthes, Andrea Schramm

Yaar is a young Jewish Berliner who dreams of being a game designer someday. He associates nothing with Judaism but lambs being led to the slaughter house. He accuses his father of suffering from the Holocaust despite never even having experienced it firsthand. Yaar rebels by developing a computer game: "Shoah. When God was asleep". He creates a virtual Germany of the 1940s where Jews can defend themselves and Nazis don't necessarily have to be bad guys. Then, his own family's history turns his plans upside down.TACHELES - The Heart of the Matter - shows how the traumas of the survivors can even make their ways into the third generation's lives. The film asks the burning question from the perspective of a 21-old: What does Holocaust have to do with me today?

Germany 2017, 96 min
by Sandra Budesheim, Sabine Zimmer

It is the culmination of every refugee story that is supposed to end with official asylum and resettlement in Germany: the personal interview with a case officer at a branch of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). The applicant and case officer meet on only one occasion. Asylum-seekers have to provide credible proof that they were persecuted in their home country. BAMF staff are responsible for deciding who stays and who leaves. They rely on the law, their common sense and their conscience. For the first time, BAMF decision-makers in the asylum proceedings offer us an insight into their day-to-day work and allow viewers to witness the asylum interviews which usually take place behind closed doors. They do their job in the eye of the storm of daily media coverage about mass migration and heated debates about the permeability of our borders. They have to find out what is true and what is false, and it is up to them to decide who is still allowed to stay in Germany for humanitarian reasons.

Germany, France 2015, 93 min
by Ayat Najafi

In Iran, since the revolution of 1979, women are no longer allowed to sing in public as soloists - at least in front of men.Defying censorship and taboos, the young composer Sara Najafi is determined to organise an official concert for solo female singers. In order to support their fight, Sara and the Iranian singers Parvin Namazi and Sayeh Sodeyfi invite three female singers from Paris, Elise Caron, Jeanne Cherhal and Emel Mathlouthi, to join them in Tehran and collaborate on their musical project, re-opening a musical bridge between France and Iran.But are they going to succeed and finally be gathered in Tehran, sing freely, side-by-side, in front of a mixed audience and without restrictions, and to open a door towards a new freedom of female voice in Iran?