Films by Philip Scheffner

Germany 2016, 94 min
by Philip Scheffner, Colorado Velcu

AND-EK GHES... – ONE FINE DAY... is the refrain of the title song in which a young man promises hisbeloved a future in Berlin if her love is only strong enough to follow him. The song was written by Colorado Velcu, charismatic multi-talent, single parent to seven children; heart, motor and chronicler of an extended family from Fat˛a Luncii in Romania.AND-EK GHES… continues an extraordinary collaboration based on the trust and friendship between the co-directors Philip Scheffner and Colorado Velcu.It began with the film REVISION (Berlinale, Forum 2012): The attempt to establish a common cinematic space between protagonists, filmmakers and the audience has now, three years since, been enlarged. The camera duplicates itself; besides the filmmaker’s, there are one, two, three cameras that wander from hand to hand. And not just the filmmaker, even we are allowed into a world in which humour, chutzpah and solidarity stand against poverty and exclusion. In which the Velcus, contrary to all ascriptions, reinvent themselves time and again. In which Berlin begins to glow in the shimmering colours of Bollywood. A world in which reality and fiction are sometimes only a laugh apart.

2016, 94 min
by Philip Scheffner

The coordinates 37°28.6'N and 0°3.8'E mark a point in the Mediterranean – 38 nautical miles from the port city Cartagena in Spain or 100 nautical miles from the Algerian port city Oran – depending on the narrator’s perspective. Observing the sea from this point, the whole world is water, sky and boundless horizon. A 'sea of possibilities', charged with the hopes, fears and dreams of the voyagers.On 14th September 2012 at 2:56pm, using these coordinates, the cruise liner 'Adventure of the Seas' reports to the Spanish Maritime Rescue Centre the sighting of a dinghy adrift with 13 persons on board.Visual contact.90 minutes.Waving.Waiting.The radio traffic between the cruise liner, the Cartagena port authorities, the rescue cruiser 'Salvamar Mimosa' and the helicopter 'Helimer 211' structures the soundscape of the film. Visually, the cinematic space contracts to a single, unedited sequence arching over the total duration of the film. It is a short YouTube clip which seems today as the very essence, the condensation of the situation in the Mediterranean. In single frames, the dinghy with 13 figures on board becomes an icon of the daily news images. We are forced to watch. From the recordings with tourists and officers of the cruise liner, with the crew of a container ship, with the Harraga, les bruleurs – “who burn their passports”, and their families the biographic traces of the documentary material are extended into a cinematic imagination. A choreography emerges reflecting the past, present and future of the voyagers: Will another, a new potential space become visible when they meet again in a cinematic space?

Germany 2012, 106 min
by Philip Scheffner

On June 29th, 1992 a farmer discovers two bodies in a corn field in the North East of Germany. Police enqiries lead to the fact that the dead men are Romanian citizens. During the attempt to cross the EU border, they have been shot by hunters. The hunters claim that they had mistaken the people for wild boar. Four years later, the trial begins. It will never be proved, which of the hunters has fired the fatal bullet. The verdict: not guilty. German Press Agency dpa reports: 'From Romania, noone has arrived for the rendition of judgement.' The police files contain the names and adress of Grigore Velcu and Eudache Calderar. However, their families never even got to know, that a trial had been held. With REVISION, a legally terminated crime case becomes the subject of a cinematic revision. Places, individuals, and memories are being connected, and form a fragile pattern from different versions and perspectives of contemporary European history.

Germany 2010, 100 min
by Philip Scheffner

DAY OF THE SPARROW is a political wildlife documentary. It tells the story of a country where theborder between war and peace is disappearing. On November 14th , 2005 a sparrow is shot dead in Leeuwarden, and in Kabul a German soldier dies. These competing headlines are the starting point for director Philip Scheffner, to trace the war using the methods of an ornithologist. On his journey through Germany, the camera circuits a reality of the war – by capturing images of apparent peace.Dialogue fragments are wafting through deserted landscapes. Birds remain in the focus, becoming our guides to hidden places where the war is produced. And then, a sudden change of perspective: An arrest takes place on a Brandenburg country lane. The birdwatchers themselves become the targets of observation.