Films by Wilfried Hauke

Germany 2024, 52 min
by Wilfried Hauke

Three hundred years after the birth of philosopher Immanuel Kant in April 2024, this documentary takes us back to 18th-century Königsberg.Immanuel Kant, born in Königsberg in 1724, was already one of the key Enlightenment thinkers during his lifetime and is still one of the most influential figures in Western philosophy today. Kant wanted to explain the world, but at the same time he was aware that he himself – like all human beings – only had a limited capacity for understanding. He never left his native Königsberg, learning all he knew about world affairs from the books he had sent over to him from England and France. And everything he knew about people was the result of the relentless observation of his environment and his own emotional life. He combined all this knowledge into a complex system of concepts, categories and matrices. The result is a moral philosophy whose universal validity he tested constantly. Marking three hundred years since his birth – in April 2024 – the film shows for the first time just how closely Kant was connected to his native town of Königsberg, which is taken back to the 18th century using sophisticated animation techniques. Many of the pressing questions that plagued people 300 years ago are posed anew in the film, in the face of the climate catastrophe and war in Europe.

2018, 52 min
by Wilfried Hauke

Once celebrated as a life saver, penicillin today is alarming researchers all over the world. A fascinating film about the history and current status of antibiotics.Ninety years ago, in the summer of 1928, Scottish doctor Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by accident. It took another two decades and a world war for him and others to succeed in producing the antibiotic in such large quantities that the epidemics of that time – typhus, syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis – could be eradicated. But Fleming already suspected that one day a downside to his medical triumph would emerge. While the discovery of penicillin was celebrated at the time as a revolutionary new „life saver“, scientists and politicians around the world today are in a state of alarm. It is estimated that over 70 percent of aggressive germs are already resistant to the alleged wonder drug penicillin. The consequence of overuse. Fleming already warned of this in his Nobel Prize speech in 1945, but by then it was already too late. Penicillin was used on a large scale for the first time during the Allied offensive against Nazi Germany in 1944. After the war, the drug was then offered over pharmacy counters in the US in the form of chewing gum to treat sore throats. Can we stop the trend today? A fascinating film about the history and current state of antibiotics.

Germany 2008
by Wilfried Hauke

Abraham Lincoln is the embodiment of the American Dream: his vision a free America united in peace and the abolishment of slavery made him an icon. Lincoln’s ideas resulted in a many casualties during the Civil War and eventually put himself in the line of fire himself. Our docu-drama tells the fascinating story of Abraham Lincoln and his assassin John Wilkes Booth, who planned the assassination like a Shakespeare plot. LINCOLN'S LAST NIGHT was filmed at historic locations and feature film sets in the US. A cast of more than 80 actors brings these recreations to life and creates an authentic view into Lincoln's America.