Films by Klaus Stern

Germany 2024, 99 min
by Klaus Stern

Digital capitalism and AI are changing the world. But who are the people at the top steering this development? And what are their ethical principles? The film is a portrait of one of the most mysterious and mightiest men in the Silicon Valley – Alex Karp, a billionaire with a doctorate in philosophy, a self-proclaimed neo-Marxist and pacifist, as well as CEO of PALANTIR whose most successful software is used by police forces to predict crime and by the military to occasionally 'kill people' – in Karp's own words.

Germany 2022, 86 min
by Frank Marten Pfeiffer, Klaus Stern

The A 49 through the Dannenrod Forest has divided the local population for over 40 years. Through their protests, three generations have been able to delay its extension until now. But for how much longer? The verdict has been passed, the forest is now occupied by activists and the police are already preparing for their eviction, to make way for the machines. [37 DOK.fest Munich, Ludwig Sporrer]

Germany 2011, 80 min
by Klaus Stern

Incentive? Doesn’t that ring a bell? Oh yes, the Hamburg-Mannheimer insurance company and the white ribbons around the wrists of the ladies reserved for the top management in the Budapest open air brothel. Just another media event with lots of hot air, because the public learned next to nothing about the practices of insurance companies. If you want to know what kind of mentality motivates their representatives and what the role of incentives is, you must take the trouble to look more closely, like the director of “Insurance Man”. In this respect a businessman like Mehmet Göker is a stroke of luck: migration background, successful businessman and an obsessive dazzler of messianic proportions who manages his company like a sect. What’s on display here is the working life of a salesmen’s sect programmed to succeed and yet devouring itself at the end. But the film is more than just the portrait of a greedy climber who falls for his own image. We also learn something about the health business. We hear that every reform of the health system brings bigger profits for the private insurance companies. And since life is a cake and Mehmet Göker wants a big piece, he sends out his modern doorstep brigades and the insurance companies reward him with millions. Which is why monthly premiums have to rise, we’re so sorry. No more questions. Matthias Heeder / DOK Leipzig