Films by Maja Tennstedt

2022, 105 min
by Tina Tripp

"Shall I stay or shall I go?" This question makes young people in East Pomerania sway between departure and attachment to their homeland, pragmatism and diffuse longings. MID SEASON follows 4 trainees in the hotel business on an island that is disintegrating into a booming, touristy coastal strip with shiny facades and a desolate hinterland. Just as their place of work, the hotel, is a transitory place, so the young people are in a transitory phase of life.»Bleiben oder Gehen?« Diese Frage lässt Jugendliche in Ostvorpommern schwanken zwischen Aufbruch und Heimatverbundenheit, zwischen Pragmatismus und diffusen Sehnsüchten. Sie leben in einem Land, das zerfällt in einen touristischen Küstenstreifen mit Hochglanzfassade und ein verödendes, langsam ausblutendes Hinterland. ZWISCHENSAISON lässt vier Auszubildende als ProtagonistInnen auftreten, setzt sie in einer visuell inszenierten Form in Bezug zu ihren Lebensräumen und stellt die Frage: Wohin ins Leben aufbrechen an einem Ort, der gezeichnet ist von auseinanderdriftenden gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen.

2021, 113 min
by Jide Tom Akinleminu

A tale about my mother and brothers from other mothers.A reflection on his parents assumed monogamous long distance marriage as well as his own Nigerian background and identity. He thereafter accidentally discovers his father‘s secret; a second family throughout the last 30 years. This revelation sends the filmmaker on a new quest, now focusing on his retired Danish mother and his newly acquainted younger Nigerian half brother. When a farm goes aflame is set in the aftermath of a lifetime of secrecy and denial, and attempts to bring together the stories and beliefs of all protagonists as they come to terms with their common past and shape their future. Moving fluidly between Denmark, Nigeria, Canada and USA, the film gently unfolds as a poetic and psychologically complex exploration of the meeting between western and African concepts of love, relationships and family.202171 Berlinale PERSPECTIVECPH:DOX36 DOK.fest Munich18 dokumentarfimwoche hamburgBFI London FFACHTUNG BERLIN FF – new berlin film award • Ecumenical Jury Award • Special Mention Best CinematographyBiografilm Festival 63 Nordic Film DaysAfrica in MotionSIFF ShanghaiIDFA Amsterdam45 MOSTRA, Sao Paulo AFRIFF – Africa International Film Festival, Lagos

Germany 2019, 84 min
by Aysun Bademsoy

The National Socialist Underground murders in the early 2000s left scars. Not only among the relatives of the victims, but also in the migrant communities and the entire German society.TRACES follows these scars and poses the question of whether such injuries can ever heal completely.“Between September 2000 and April 2007, nine immigrant businessmen and a German policewoman were murdered. (…) I read the news about the murders and thought: That could have been my father or my brother.” We’re talking about the murders of the self-proclaimed National Socialist Underground (NSU) which came to light through the main perpetrators’ suicide. After the end of the five-year NSU trial against their co-perpetrators and supporters, filmmaker Aysun Bademsoy goes in search of the traces left by this crime series: in the victims’ families and migrant communities, where the investigators had first investigated exclusively and sowed deep mistrust with speculations of drug trafficking and the Mafia, not least with assignations like “Kebap Murders”. “The NSU murdered my father. The investigators stained his honour. In doing so, they killed him a second time,” a surviving daughter says after the – to her disappointing – judgement was pronounced. Confidence in the German state was deeply shaken and the trial, a sobering experience for all families which left many things in the dark, destroyed rather than restored it. A film about surviving – despite everything.(DOK Leipzig, Frederik Lang)