A ghost ride through Finnish TV archives of the 1960s grazes the moon landing, American TV shows, a war in Africa. But how to connect with the world when dancing is forbidden?!
The anonymous narrator is a kind of web-adventurous flâneuse, neurotic and endlessly curious. A disturbance in the proprioception, which is the ability to sense the position, movement and location of the body and its parts, makes her perceive the world in a new way. Seemingly random anecdotes found on the internet and instructions from her cryptic physiotherapist start to come together in surprising ways. The found material forms a mosaic that reflects a world full of gazes, rules and technologies that separate us. Lines from the present and the distant past take our narrator to the 1960s, where medieval dance bans, televised wars, lost bones, space utopias and American TV stars collide. This film reflects how we can be and live in the world within ourselves and with each other. With those who are near and with those who are far. Along with all this, the film recommends dancing to everyone.
Far from the sea, a theater engineer builds a fully functional steampunk submarine with his friends. While escaping social reality, he questions the meaningfulness of our actions.
Theatre engineer Elias builds a fully functional steampunk submarine with his friends. While Nico rescues people from the waves of the Mediterranean, the 70-year-old artist Jim advises: “Don't do it. Don't fix cars. Rather, build something you really want to.” Elias asks himself: Is there a decision to be made between self-realisation and selfless action? On what does responsibility towards individuals or a larger society depend?
About Water and Dreams is a philosophical journey that questions the meaningfulness of our actions and dares to dream publicly in our dreamless society.
The rescue of 104 castaways in the Mediterranean, person by person, step by step, in a real time documentary. Help against the clock – and the organised ignorance of the authorities.
How a sea rescue happens is beyond imagination. The documentary One Hundred and Four brings this dramatic situation closer through the rescuers' perspective.
Shortly after the distress call, several cameras accompany different situations simultaneously. Different angles offer the possibility to set a unique focus on the actions taking place in parallel. The uncut real-time documentary begins during the search for the dinghy ahead of the refugee boat and ends with the successful rescue. The situation comes to a head with the appearance of the Libyan Coast Guard and the political situation leaves the crew and the rescued people in distress for several days, as no Mediterranean country allows them to come to shore. Only after several days and an approaching thunderstorm, is a European port reached.
Golden Dove Feature-Length Film, Film Prize Leipziger Ring, Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, German Competition Documentary Film, DOK Leipzig, Germany (2023)
For years, Michelle has been trying to prove her imprisoned husband’s innocence. A documentary thriller about a tireless struggle against the U.S. American justice system.
When Michelle married her long-time friend Jermaine on the bleak visiting floor of a maximum-security prison, she hoped they would soon share a life in freedom. Jermaine claims to be wrongfully convicted. He is serving a sentence of 22 years to life at the notorious Sing Sing prison near New York City. For years, Michelle has fought tirelessly to prove his innocence while also caring for her teenage children, Paul and Kaylea, as a single mother. In a gruelling routine of short phone calls, letter-writing and brief visits to the correctional facility, she dreams of an idyllic family life outside of the prison walls. As Paul and Kaylea are about to start their own lives, Michelle's quest becomes increasingly urgent. Then, a new piece of evidence is discovered in Jermaine's legal case, raising her hopes for his immediate release. Almost a decade in the making, For the Time Being is an intimate exploration of female resilience and a timely look at the far-reaching consequences of the ailing U.S. justice system.
Gedanken-Aufschluss Prize, DOK Leipzig, Germany (2023)
German Competition Documentary Film
The Gate
Jasmin Herold, Michael David Beamish
How does the omnipresence of war affect life? The film looks for answers in the “American Way” of everyday life in the vast deserts of Utah, where the U.S. Army are testing new weapons systems.
In the middle of the barren Utah desert, is the Dugway Proving Grounds – a top-secret military testing facility. Bound to this place are the lives of a soldier, a military chaplain, a father searching for his missing son, and a survivor of the atomic bomb. Their fates and fortunes reveal a country scarred by war.
The cutting down of a cherry tree becomes the starting point of an intimate dialogue about transgenerational trauma between a mother and a daughter. The line between the need for investigation and the desire for healing becomes blurry when a persistent camera depicts the felling of the tree. The short documentary is an attempt to find a shared language for the unspeakable consequences of child sexual abuse within my own family. Content warning: The film contains descriptions of experiences of sexual violence.
An unpleasant examination by a meticulous doctor leads to a supposedly inevitable medical intervention that leaves the young patient scarred in body and soul.
She knew this day would come and the choice she'd have to make. But as it finally comes, Maya cannot wrap her head around it. A mole – it's so small, so insignificant, just a mark... How can it be so hard to part from it? Can Maya ever feel whole again when a bit of her is taken away?
I recently saw someone that looked like you. I realised quickly that he was not you – but he moved like you. Ran his hands through his hair like you. And had the same backpack in the same shabby state. So I decided to follow your not-you for a while.
Is ADHS the fashionable diagnosis of a society geared towards efficiency and Ritalin the perfect doping agent? A personal journey to the heart of chaos and back – from a deliberately female perspective.
What does the rise in the diagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and other mental illnesses since the 90s have to do with the efficiency-driven and dumbed-down civilisation in which the grid of normal is becoming ever narrower? Are ADHD drugs the doping of the performance society? And who actually determines what is normal and what is not?
With five different female ADHD sufferers, Sick Girls gets to the bottom of these questions and gives insight into the personal difficulties of living with ADHD. Director Gitti Grüter examines their own ADHD and interacts with their protagonists partly in front and partly from behind the camera, addressing chaos, lack of concentration, relationship problems, addiction, depression, insomnia and impulsivity. Gitti builds a bridge between the hardships and joys of the affected women and a society that blows back at them in the form of stigmatisation and stereotyping of the feminine and the desolate.
Through its cinematic devices, Sick Girls gives the audience a momentary sense of having ADHD and digs into the social contexts of this “anomaly”.
A young refugee is stabbed to death in the north German town of Celle. An approach to structural racism via investigation files, football and the filmmaker's growing up in Celle.
The 15-year-old Yezidi Arkan Hussein Khalaf is stabbed to death in Celle in northern Germany. The police questions, interrogates, autopsies, searches, reconstructs, preserves, records – 1700 pages. An approach to structural racism via investigation files, football and growing up in Celle. The essayistic documentary reads the files and asks about their performativity: Which terms find their way into the verdict, and which get lost? It examines the imprints of those writing the narrative about the crime. Major football events from 1990 to 2014 serve as chroniclers of the formation of German identity: from Helmut Kohl, the attacks of the early 90s, to the patriotism of the summer fairy tale of 2006, and the myth of the diverse world champion in 2014. It contrasts this with Arkan's family. How did they experience the night of the crime? Why is it clear to them that it was racism? The film dives through files, newspaper articles, archive material, images of small-town idylls and football matches. It explores the migration history of the Yezidi as so-called “Gastarbeiter” in Celle, forgotten right-wing attacks and the filmmaker's own growing up in Celle. As part of the white-dominant society, she feels her own longing: let it be a coincidence that it hit Arkan. What’s behind this longing?
The sun is setting in the jungle. The little monkey rocks from leaf to leaf. His dreams are wild and colourful … A filmic lullaby that definitely won’t make anyone fall asleep.
The sun sets and the eyes are closing. Rocking from one green leaf to the next, the little monkey glides gently to sleep. Suddenly, the world of dreams gets darker, more colourful and wild. Mysterious plants, creatures and shapes line the trajectory through the night.
sounds for a wounded landscape – Activities on the Ground
sounds for a wounded landscape – Activities on the Ground
Frauke Berg, Oliver Gather
New German Short Films
Documentary Film
Germany
2023
11 minutes
English
International Premiere open
Trailer
Synopsis
In view of the question of a new way of dealing with our resources, there is also the question of a new way of dealing with landscape. How can humans enter into a relationship with the landscape, beyond a subject-object relationship that degrades everything “non-human” to an available mass of exploitation?
As a self-experiment, the sound artists Frauke Berg and Anja Lautermann play and listen into the large hole of the Garzweiler open-cast mine. The camera observes the conflict at the hole, looks and listens into it. Like a collage, the film links all with all and finds a form for the fact that everything takes place with consequences in and on the same ground.
All attempts to alleviate or stop the wounding of the landscape seem fragile, helpless, and perhaps even futile.
After their hunger strike, 5 climate activists reunite. Lina has joined the “Last Generation”, her comrades prepare for the upcoming eviction of Lützerath. How far will they go?
On 31st August 2021, 5 young people go on a hunger strike in Berlin's government district to draw attention to the climate crisis. 6 months later, part of the group meets again. Lina is now with the “Last Generation” and wants to put pressure on the government through means of civil disobedience. This form of protest does not go far enough for Taura, Guerrero, Charly and Fuchs: in order to stop the impending tipping points, they want to go other ways…
Filmmaker Felix Maria Bühler accompanies his five protagonists for a year. He takes part in actions with them and gives an insight into the climate movements in Germany: “Fridays For Future”, “Extinction Rebellion”, “Ende Gelände” and “Last Generation”.
The film delves into the world of radical climate activism in an intimate way. While Taura, Guerrero, Charly and Fuchs discuss new strategies among themselves, Lina sticks to the streets with the “Last Generation”. At the same time, the bucket-wheel excavator is digging ever closer to Lützerath and Guerrero, Charly and Fuchs have to prepare for the upcoming eviction. Above all, the question: Where are the limits of the individual and how far will the group go to stand up for their ideals?
The drama around the eviction of an environmentally sensitive forest forms the common thread of a film about the dashed hopes of the younger generation for a better future.
Two thousand cops challenge two hundred tree squatters in an ancient forest in the middle of Germany that is to make way for a nonsensical motorway. The political and legal struggle against the construction of this motorway has been going on for forty years, but now the state, on behalf of the federal government, has decided to wrestle it out – against all resistance. The drama around the eviction of the forest squatters from the environmentally sensitive Dannenröder Forest forms the common thread of a film about the dashed hopes of the younger generation for a better future. It revolves around their growing anger, the ignorance of politicians in the face of the greatest crisis upon mankind ever, and the seemingly indestructible stranglehold of capital interests over supposed intentions to build a sustainable future.
DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.