Films by Stefan Kolbe

Germany 2021, 111 min
by Chris Wright, Stefan Kolbe

The filmmakers first meet Stefan in 2015, in the therapy ward of Brandenburg Prison. Their first impression is of a polite, shy man. A warder tells them Stefan is an ice-cold woman-killer.The filmmakers follow him through the last years of his prison term. They face some uncomfortable questions. Can anyone really know what is going on inside this man? The part of the protagonist is taken by a puppet, the scenes shift into theatre. Truth and falsehood blend in a cascade of presumption.

2016, 40 min
by Chris Wright, Stefan Kolbe

Sarah and Daniel are having a baby. Sarah is 19, Daniel 24. We made another film with Sarah, THE HOME, about her time in a children’s home. She was 12.Her mother died 11 years before. Later, we visited Sarah in the home again, when she was 15. Her sister Nancy was pregnant, at 19. Sarah thought that was stupid. Sarah now has a baby with Daniel and they call her Marie. Sarah, Marie and Daniel.Daniel also grew up without his parents. A short film about the possibility of love in a world where love is seldom seen.

Germany 2014, 90 min
by Stefan Kolbe, Chris Wright

What happens when two atheist film-makers are given free rein in a religious seminary? A seminary in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther once launched the Reformation, but the percentage of Christians is now the lowest in Europe? For a year, Chris Wright & Stefan Kolbe followed a group of young men and women through the final phase of training for the Protestant priesthood. We see them learn the tools of religious practice. But gradually, the focus shifts; both protagonists and film-makers are confronted with the most fundamental human questions. The boundaries dissolve, between faith and scepticism, comfort and despair, truth and madness. What follows is an open, intimate dialogue on our longing for love, kinship and meaning.

Germany 2011, 52 min
by Herbert Ostwald

They steal handbags, open cars and have no respect for humans. The last baboons of the Table Mountain region have become a real plague.
The resident population is split into sympathetic protectors and fierce opponents. The animals are deliberately run over by cars, shot and poisoned. 
According to scientists the baboons have to relearn that humans are a threat in order to survive. Thus a special force has been recruited from the townships: the „Baboon Police“. Day and night the „officers“ follow the marauding baboon troops trying to chase away the monkeys with slingshots, sticks and whips. 
The documentary follows the „Baboon Police“ and their marauding monkey clans. Is there still a chance for humans and baboons to live in peaceful neighbourhood?

Germany 2010, 87 min
by Stefan Kolbe, Chris Wright

On the black earth of Germany\'s agricultural heartland stands a medieval castle. Upstairs, seven teenagers and their carers. The boundaries of life are school and chatroom, clandestine date and job interview. Gradually, a year passes and the world grows with us. This is a film about finding your place in this world, in this time. And, inevitably, about carrying the burdens parents can lay on us.

Germany 2010, 28 min
by Chris Wright, Stefan Kolbe

Seeing God is not proof, says Kevin, aged 13. No, feeling is the only real proof of God's love. It was God's hand that brought his family from Kazakhstan to Germany. Now he joins his parents at their Pentecostal church three times a week. And since a healthy spirit needs a healthy body, Kevin boxes. He trains with his father in the garden. Kevin is tired. He doesn't want to study, when he's older. "It makes you turn away from God. What I really want is a nice garden. I'll do it myself, like my father." THE DISCIPLE is a film from the alien world of Kevin's routine.