Films by Peter Dörfler

2015, 90 min
by Cyril Tuschi

Digital Dissidents are the warriors of the digital age: Republican patriots, radical anarchists and cyber-hippies fight side by side for transparency and privacy in the digital world. For that, they are in prison, live in exile or have lost their careers and families. While many people celebrate them as heroes, critics, intelligence services and companies condemn their actions as an assault on our security. Why are they doing it? What are their motives?The film focuses on people, who became dissidents out of different motivations: NSA-whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake or William Binney, the journalist Daniel Ellsberg, who is said to be the prime father of whistleblowers since he published the 'Pentagon Papers' in the 1970s, former British MI5-agent Annie Machon or the founder of Wiki Leaks Julian Assange. They have worked in the system for years and finally attacked it from within by disclosing sensitive information.52min or 90min | HD | 16:9 | original English version with German voice over availablewww.journeyman.tv (World Sales)www.vimeo.com/137145752

Germany 2011
by Peter Dörfler

Germany 2008, 88 min
by Peter Dörfler

Norbert Witte had a dream: he wanted to turn the Spreepark – a leisure park famous in the former GDR under the name “Plänterwald”, into the biggest amusement park of the just re-united Germany. Instead the king of rollercoasters drove the park into bankruptcy and flew with his family and the majority of the fairground rides to Peru in 2002. All he left behind in Berlin was an incredible amount of debt and a huge mess. In Peru, the breakthrough they had hoped for was never realized. Witte returned to Berlin, after having gotten dangerously involved with the Peruvian drug mafia. The planned smuggling of drugs was uncovered by the police in Peru and they subsequently arrested his son Marcel. Witte, himself, was arrested in Berlin, where he is now serving work release sentence that allows him to leave the prison during the day. Marcel was sent to one of the toughest prisons of the world for 20 years and has little hope of ever leaving the place alive. CATAPULT is taking us on a rollercoaster ride along the extreme ups and downs of events in Norbert Witte’s life. He presents himself as a charismatic showman with inveterate optimism, who would never give up his family and who is full of plans for the future. But how does he cope with having put his son’s life on the line? Is Norbert Witte a selfish dreamer or is he really a visionary businessman, who just keeps failing due to unfortunate circumstances?