Films by Nic Nagel

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 2019, 79 min
by Annekatrin Hendel

Sven Marquardt might be the most famous bouncer worldwide. But beside standing in front of the legendary techno club Berghain in Berlin, he is also a well-known and skilled photographer. Long before the Berlin Wall came down, Marquardt portrayed the subcultural East-Berlin scene. His black and white photography illustrates it as voluptuous, laid-back, dirty and existential. Even if shot by daylight, his work is permeated by darkness, ecstasy and night.with: Sven Marquardt, Dominique Hollenstein und Robert Paris

Germany 2011, 97 min
by Annekatrin Hendel

Once with the Stasi, always with the Stasi? Once you were in the agent controller's grasp you could never escape - that's what they say, anyway. Writer Paul Gratzik was an unofficial informer for the GDR State Security Service for twenty years, broke with them in the 80's and exposed his identity. "Vaterlandsverräter" ("Traitors to the Fatherland") is a portrait of an exceptional man. On one hand it is a psychological profile of one of an extraordinarily paradoxical figure, a "man of extremes": satyr, seducer, radical and hermit. On the other hand it tells a story about the GDR, its critics and the Stasi of the kind that has never been told before in all the 20 years since the end of East Germany.

Germany 2009, 87 min
by Helga Reidemeister

Hossein and Shaima have loved each other since childhood. As teenagers they were separated by war. They meet again in Kabul in the 1990s. Poverty forces Hossein to fight in the war. A shell splinter leaves him a paraplegic. Shortly afterwards, Shaima is sold in marriage to a man 40 years her senior. Shaima, who is the man’s fourth wife, falls pregnant. But Shaima’s husband still owes half the dowry, and so her father brings her back into the constraining patriarchal fold of the family, where she lives today with her fiveyear- old daughter. This situation doesn’t prevent the two lovers from seeing each other as much as possible – even though this means going against their families’ hard and fast rules. They both dream of living together in peace. Caught on the horns of a dilemma, and in constant fear of revenge on the part of the male members of both families who adhere to the harsh tribal laws handed down from the Middle Ages, Hossein and Shaima struggle under the most difficult circumstances imaginable to hold on to their love. This film describes the infringement of a taboo, the outcome of which is still uncertain. In an environment where war and want have dealt heavy blows on compassion and humanity and the family is the only remaining social bond, the chances of personal happiness are very slim indeed.

Germany 2004, 93 min
by Helga Reidemeister

Helga Reidemeister portrays four women from Afghanistan—Jamila Mujahed, India—Arundhati Roy, Serbia—Stasa Zajovic and the USA—Sissy Farenthold, who demonstrate their opposition to nationalism and war.In TEXAS—KABUL director Helga Reidemeister shows four committed women, who do not tolerate war and don’t want to be silent about it.A political road movie, a journey around the planet, searching for meaning in times of war, and a journey into the own past. The director, worried by the announcement of the wars following the tragedy of September 11th in New York, seeks allies to act prudently in the panic erupted.She finds four women in four different countries of the world. Arundhati Roy, from New Delhi, world famous writer of the novel “The God of Small Things” is considered to be “the voice of the third world” and a militant opponent of globalization.Stasa Zajovic, from Belgrade, a founder of the pacifist group “Women in Black”, was active in resistance against the Milosevic dictatorship. She was awarded with the „Millennium Peace Prize“ of the UN in 2000.Jamila Mujahed has experienced 23 years of war in Kabul. She is the editor of “Malalai”, the only women’s magazine in Afghanistan. In 2004 she was awarded with the Johann-Philipp Palm Preis for the freedom of expression and freedom of press.Sissy Farenthold, law professor from Texas, former Member of Parliament and candidate for the post of Gouverneur, worked as a human rights observer for the UN. She is now preparing a tribunal for Iraq war.