Films by Niko Schabel

Germany 2013, 85 min
by Markus CM Schmidt

European bluefin tuna can grow to the size of a passenger them migrate from the Atlantic to spawning grounds in the Mediterranean. Fact is that tuna stocks face collapse. Yet they are still being fished during spawning season. The fishermen, too, are facing extinction: They can only service the loan debt on their boats by continuing to fish. While some have used questionable means to secure fishing licenses for still plentiful Libyan waters, the rest are left to trawl the already overfished areas. The Mediterranean fishermen’s desperate fight for survival is coming to a head. In the intense images the film tells a parable of hope, disillusionment and desperation. It exposes the mechanisms of a value chain, which is destroying its own basis with a strategy based on shortsighted greed. In the end both the fish and the people loose.

2008, 86 min

Narmila is on the Iranian Women's national football team, they’re dedicated, they train, they love football, but they have one problem, they are not allowed to compete.Under Iranian law only men can participate in or watch a sporting match.When Marlene, the left back on the Berlin-Kreuzberg women’s team, hears of this, she decides to do something about it. She spends the next year in a difficult struggle with the Iranian government to get a match arranged between her team and the Iranian women’s team. Finally, she and her colleagues manage to get through the red tape, the approval is granted and the game takes place. Men are banned from attending, and the morals police stand outside to prevent anyone from peaking inside. Inside, even though it was forbidden to advertise the match, 1000 women chant and cheer. The excitement ignites the stadium until over the loudspeaker a woman’s voice reminds them to behave decently and tend their hijab.Football Under Cover is more than a film about a football match. It’s a film about real life in a restrictive culture where women are severely controlled by men, but still through it all, self expression worms its way out. 52 & 86 minutes, HD