Films by Patrick Veigel

2024, 99 min
by Enrique Sánchez Lansch

A star dancer at the Cambodian royal court lovingly raises her husband's little brother as her own son. Decades later, as a forced labourer under the Khmer Rouge, she discovers that her foster son is Pol Pot.Chea Samy was an outstanding soloist in the royal dance ensemble at the Cambodian Royal Palace in the 1930s. But she was also Pol Pot’s foster mother. After marrying Pol’s older brother, a low-level official at the royal court, she looked after the boy as if he were her own. They lost contact when he disappeared into the underground after his graduation. In 1975, like millions of other Cambodians, she was driven to the rice fields. Only after three years of forced labour did she learn that Pol Pot was the boy she had raised decades before. As one of only few dancers, she managed to survive his reign and returned to Phnom Penh as a dance teacher, thus preserving knowledge of the traditional dance. One of her first pupils was Sophiline Cheam, now a successful choreographer. Her ensemble incorporates events from Cambodia’s past in its dance routines. The starting point is a curious fact about Pol Pot’s career, which few Cambodians know about: the connection between Pol Pot and classical Cambodian dance. Artists and intellectuals, in particular, fell victim to the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge, whose leader ironically spent a crucial part of his childhood in the royal palace and gained access to higher education thanks to this dance.

Germany 2022, 99 min
by Tine Kugler, Günther Kurth

Boyhood in Berlin. KALLE KOSMONAUT accompanies Kalle, his family and their East Berlin neighborhood along the Avenue of the Cosmonauts over a shooting period of 10 years.16-year-old Kalle wanders through a wasteland in Berlin. He regrets a momentous act that will change his life significantly. „I really don’t know how it all started…“ We begin with Kalle at 10 years old. Alone at night in his ‘hood. His first love. His Jugendweihe (civic initiation ceremony). Dangerous dares on the city’s district heating pipes. Friendships and weddings. Trial, conviction, jail. The world outside keeps on turning. Grandpa misses the GDR. Grandma defeats her addiction. Mother lets off fireworks on Kalle’s 18th birthday. The policewoman watches over their neighborhood. After his return from prison Kalle begins a breathless journey back to himself.Kalle Kosmonaut is a documentary long-term observation as well as an animated journey through Kalle’s mind. Coming-of-age story and hybrid of direct cinema, graphic novel and in-depth conversations. A radically honest and poetic reflection on love, family, fate and guilt – carried by the hope for a better life.

Germany 2015, 93 min
by Andrea Roggon

Helge Schneider is one of the most extraordinary German artists: Jazz musician, entertainer, film director, actor and clown. His exceptional talent is his improvisational skill. This is where he shows his bubbling creativity. “I make the everyday grey colorful,” is what he says about himself. In his world, the fantastic coexists with the everyday and it is difficult to define the boundaries between reality and fiction. Even in his communication with his audiences, this element of disguise is used, humorously conveying his attitude toward the world. But how does Helge Schneider react to a filmmaker who approaches him to make a portrait about him when he doesn’t like for people to know too much about him?

Germany, Switzerland 2015, 99 min
by Miriam Jakobs, Gerhard Schick

A sick doctor, a highly sensitive code and the solace of art: While our protagonist is going through the unemotional diagnostic algorithm of mainstream medicine in order to find the right medicine for his depression, he also seeks assurance and solace in the artistic perspective; hoping that at some point in time he will be able to make peace with his dark gene, which all but destroyed his life.The search for  the origin of his depression confronts the protagonist with existential questions and bizarre business models as well as guiding him into breath-taking worlds of imagery and sound.

Germany 2012, 100 min
by Jan Schmidt-Garré

Modern yoga, that is, the form practised daily by tens of millions of people around the world, goes back directly to the god Shiva according to Indian tradition. At the same time, however, modern yoga originated in the early twentieth century, a creation of Indian savant T. Krishnamacharya (1888-1989). That story is far less known and what this film is all about. Krishnamacharya’s life and teachings are seen through the eyes of the director Jan Schmidt-Garre on his search for authentic yoga. His journey leads him from the legendary students and relatives of Krishnamacharya’s to the source of modern yoga, at the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore. From Pattabhi Jois Jan learns the “Sun salutation”, from Iyengar the “King of Asanas”, the headstand, and finally Sribhashyam reveals him his father’s secret “Life Saving Yoga Session”. A feature-length documentary including rare historical footage as well as lavish reenactments.

Germany 2011, 79 min
by Branwen Okpako

Branwen Okpako’s „The Education of Auma Obama“ is a captivating and intimate portrait of the U.S. president’s older half-sister, who embodies a post-colonial, feminist identity.An academic overachiever, she studied linguistics and contemporary dance in Heidelberg, Germany, before enrolling in film school in Berlin, where she met Nigerian-born director Okpako in the nineties. After living in the United Kingdom for a short period, Auma Obama eventually moved back to Kenya to mentor a young generation of community activists, social workers and other ambitious young men and women who lacked her privileged education and training, but were nonetheless determined to make a positive contribution to their society.Okpako has always been interested in questions of identity, affiliation and belonging. Although she frames her film as a biographical portrait of Obama, she goes much further, providing a layered historical context and discussions of post- colonial African identity from a feminist perspective. Okpako collects testimonies almost exclusively from women, echoing the African tradition of women as chroniclers of oral history. When coupled with these accounts, Okpako’s use of archival footage — filmed during colonization for an entirely different purpose — offers a new reading of history and the present. Obama is also the daughter of a charismatic man who fought for the liberation of his country and participated in the shaping of the first years of independence. She witnessed his hopefulness and rise as well as his disillusionment and demise, coming into adulthood as her country - and continent - fell prey to despotism, corruption and poverty.The Education of Auma Obama is also a film about a generation of politically and socially engaged Africans whose aspirations are informed by their parents’ experiences, and whose ambition to forge a better future for their communities starts from the ground up. Rasha Salti, September 2011 [Programmer's Note – REAL TO REAL / TIFF]With: Auma Obama, Kezia Obama, Marsat Osumba Onyango, Mama Sarah Obama, Elke Brenstein, Gloria Hagberg, Paula Schramm, Lois Wambui Thuo, Njeri Karago, Prof. Wierlacher, Jai Gonzales, Alfons L. Ims, Wanjiru Kinyanjui a.o.