Films by Peter Badel

Germany, Austria 2019, 218 min
by Thomas Heise

The film picks up the biographical pieces of a family torn apart through the end of the 19th and into the 20th century.The used material is what remained of Thomas Heise’s family.It is about people who by chance found each other, only then to lose each other.Now it is their descendants, their children and grandchildren who are beginning to disappear.Fathers and mothers, sons and brothers, the affairs, the hurt and the joy in landscapes of transition – each bearing the intertwining, hallmarks of their times. A collage of images, sounds, letters, diaries, notes, voices, fragments of time and space.

Germany 2010, 90 min
by Pamela Meyer-Arndt

Berka, a Thuringian village within the change of centuries. The photographers Ludwig Schirmer and Werner Mahler have documented the change of the Thuringian village Berka over the centuries - from 1949 until 2006. Their poetic photo series shows an idyllic and well functioning village community and is the starting point for the documentary. The documentary tells the dramatic and rousing story of Berkas inhabitants. How they tried to build their existence again and again after the war, beneath Socialism, the reunification and now as citizens of the Federal Republic Germany.

Germany 2009
by Alexander Biedermann

In his debut, Alexander Biedermann encounters five hackers and questions both their very existence and the impetus for their actions. The film portrays hackers, who constantly re-define borders of computer systems. They all associate their experience with a particular feeling of power: Only a few command lines enabled them to manipulate crucial features of modern society. Though regarding themselves as keepers and guardians, the legal grey area and the conflicting individual goals and social necessities become the touchstone of their biographies. HACKER is a portrait which follows human traces in the data network, uncovering personal stories hidden beneath its surface. 79min | HD | DigiBeta | 16:9 | original German version with English subtitles available

Germany 2009
by Boris Hars-Tschachotin

Charismatic, erratic, egocentric, almost forgotten… Sergej Tschachotin was a scientist of international repute, friend to Pavlov and Einstein, revolutionary and pacifist. His private life was changeful too: five marriages, eight sons. SERGEJ IN THE URN tells the story of Sergej Tschachotin’s epic existence - from 1883 to 1973 - through the memories of four of his sons. Speaking openly for the first time, they tell of Tschachotin’s role as a cancer researcher, his participation in anti-totalitarian propaganda movements, and his crusade against the arms race. But each son also exposes his conflicted relationship with a colossal fatherly shadow. Filmmaker Boris Hars-Tschachotin, Sergej’s great-grandson, weaves together an intimate, tortured family saga that mirrors the myriad contradictions and possibilities of the 20th century. Seeking resolution, he attempts to reunite his scattered family in a small Corsican village to bury the ashes contained in Sergej’s urn. This story, however, like the painful period from Russian Revolution to the beginning of the 21st century it describes, could ultimately split apart. original German/French/Russian version with German narrator and English or German subtitles

Germany, Hungary 2009
by Jan N. Lorenzen

Béla Bartók is one of the most distinguished composers of the 20th century. And yet, already in his lifetime, the celebrated pianist turned his back on European concert halls. Year over year, he travelled to the most remote villages of Transylvania, in order to search for age-old melodies. In doing so, he collected thousands of folk songs, preserving them on wax cylinders and music paper. But could this music survive the upheavals of the last century? In his film, Jan Lorenzen sets out on a journey to trace the tracks of Béla Bartók accompanied by camera and microphone. He creates a moving documentary about people, who still live in a bygone time, and about a period in a man's life, who accomplished preserving their musical soul on the cylinders of a phonograph.