Films by Robert Cibis

France, Germany 2021, 108 min
by Christophe Cognet

As men and women desperately attempted to pass images of hell on to us, we have a duty to look at them. From these unprecedented photographs, taken secretly by deportees at the risk of their lives, we are bound to wonder how we could imagine the events of which they bear the incomplete and fleeting traces. This film is putting together an archeology of images as actions, conducting a worried exploration of the capacity and lack of the human imagination when confronted to the most dismal darkness. Such pictures are the only ones of which nature derives decisively from an equal status of authors and subjects. Deportees managed to take such clandestine photographs in at least five camps, from 1943 to the autumn of 1944: Dachau, Mittelbau-Dora, Buchenwald, Auschwitz- Birkenau et Ravensbrück.

Germany 2019, 80 min
by Lilian Franck, Robert Cibis

At sixteen, Uffie posts a song online and becomes an internet sensation.She goes on world tour. Champagne in Tokyo, French kiss in New York, cocaine in Hong Kong.But she is young, and the more famous she becomes, the greater the pressure gets. A chance to escape appears as her child is born, but the music industry won’t let her go. Her daughter is brought up by a nanny while Uffie is away. Amidst gigs, an overdose and her mother’s death, hope for change arises as Uffie is pregnant again.

Germany, Austria 2018, 85 min
by Lilian Franck

We lack knowledge when it comes to our health. There are a very few institutions we can rely on for competence and independence in this area. Doctors, of course, and the Ministry of Health, as well. They, in turn, rely on the World Health Organization. What if the trust and responsibility that billions of people around the world relinquish and transfer, are not justified?This personal investigation tells the story of how the WHO has been infiltrated and influenced by industry, and how the member States misuse the UN-organization for their own national economic interests. Whether dealing with the tobacco scandal, swine flu or Fukushima - the WHO plays a daunting role. It lacks funding, power and transparency. And its decisions end up helping the pharmaceutical companies and the nuclear energy industry more than the victims. The WHO was created as a guardian of world health, but it has become the plaything of individual interests. Lilian Franck shows a frightening portrayal of our present society, in which governmental politics is becoming obsolete.

Germany, Austria 2017, 94 min
by Christian Tod

What would you do if your income were taken care of?Just a few years ago, an unconditional basic income was considered a pipe dream. Today, this utopia is more imaginable than ever before - intense discussions are taking place in all political and scientific camps.FREE LUNCH SOCIETY provides background information about this idea and searches for explanations, possibilities and experiences regarding its implementation.Globalization, automation, Donald Trump. The middle class is falling apart. One hears talk about the causes, rather than about solutions. Time for a complete rethinking: An unconditional basic income means money for everyone - as a human right without service in return! Visionary reform project, neoliberal axe to the roots of the social state or socially romantic left-wing utopia? Depending on the type and scope, a basic income demonstrates very different ideological visions. Which side of the coin one sees depends on one's own idea of humankind: inactivity as sweet poison that seduces people into laziness, or freedom from material pressures as a chance for oneself and for the community. Do we actually need the whip of existential fear to avoid a lazy, depraved life in front of the TV set? Or does gainful employment give our lives meaning and social footing simply because we haven't known anything else for centuries? And because we've never all had the freedom to self-actualise in other ways?That basic income is a powerful idea is indisputable: land, water and air are gifts of nature. They are different from private property that humans create by their individual effort. However, when we receive wealth from nature, from the commons, then that wealth belongs to all of us equally. From Alaska's oil fields to the Canadian prairie, from Washington's think tanks to the Namibian steppes, the film takes us on a grand journey and shows us what the driverless car has to do with the ideas of a German billionaire and a Swiss referendum. FREE LUNCH SOCIETY, the first international film in cinemas about basic income, is dedicated to one of the most crucial questions of our times.

Germany 2010, 52 min
by Martin Gronemeyer, Robert Cibis

The German and French national health care systems range among the world's most costly. And yet, medical care deteriorates. No private insurance? Be ready to wait in line for an appointment, expect hurried examinations and hefty co-payments. How did we get to this point? What is going on behind the scenes of health care system? Who is pulling the strings? "Preying on Patients" illuminates on many levels the web that doctors, pharmaceutical concerns, politicians and investors spin around the ill and sick. In a multi billion business, the patient becomes the pawn, the prey. Carefully researched case stories uncover long term strategies and motives of the health system's different players - and how they carry out their struggle at the cost of those who can not fight back: the patients.

Germany 2009, 95 min
by Lilian Franck, Robert Cibis

Pianomania is a portrayal of Stefan Knuepfer, the virtuosic piano tuner from Steinway, Austria, and his many famous clients at work, including Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel, Andrej Gravilov, Mitsuko Uchida, Rudolf Buchbinder and Pierre-Laurent Aimard; the film offers an unusual and amusing look behind the heavy curtains at major concerts. This film is about the quest for the perfect tone. It shows each obstacle that is created by abandoning everyday routine and surrendering oneself to Art.The fortitude that devotion engenders, the supreme love of perfection and of divine moments; and yet the refusal to bask in one’s glory. Our protagonists are world-renowned pianists and their hero, piano tuner Stefan Knuepfer; and all are obsessed with the idea of the perfect sound.