A New Era
Boris Svartzman
A long-term observation of the upheavals in China, exemplified by a group of resistant islanders. They refuse to be resettled, they defend their homes, they achieve …
D
Film Archive
A New Era
Documentary Film
France
2019
71 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Anne-Catherine Witt, Antonio Magliano
Director
Boris Svartzman
Cinematographer
Boris Svartzman
Editor
Suzana Pedro, Emma Augier
Script
Boris Svartzman, Laurine Estrade
Sound
Boris Svartzman
Over ten years, the director and photographer Boris Svartzman repeatedly visited the inhabitants of a plot of land in China. The houses and gardens there are in dispute, above all because of their specific location: an island in the Pearl River, in the middle of the megalopolis of Guangzhou. The area is to be transformed into a “nature paradise” with residential estates and parks for the new Chinese middle class. But the people resist. Their homes were destroyed in 2008. Life went on, just in ruins. They were ejected and returned. Life went on, but not necessarily in the new settlements they were given. Their gardens were destroyed. Life went on, in the gardens they rebuilt.
Loud and quiet resistance against the modernisation that’s going on all over the world seems especially dramatic in China. Svartzman captures in detail the co-existence of a modern, Western-inspired lifestyle and ancient traditions and architectures. This turns the life story of the old gentleman who always cordially welcomes the foreign guest like a ghost into a requiem. The West, fixated on cities, Svartzman says, could have learned a lot about “rural democracy” from China – had the Far East not trampled down its rural spaces and people in such a Western fashion.
Saskia Walker
Loud and quiet resistance against the modernisation that’s going on all over the world seems especially dramatic in China. Svartzman captures in detail the co-existence of a modern, Western-inspired lifestyle and ancient traditions and architectures. This turns the life story of the old gentleman who always cordially welcomes the foreign guest like a ghost into a requiem. The West, fixated on cities, Svartzman says, could have learned a lot about “rural democracy” from China – had the Far East not trampled down its rural spaces and people in such a Western fashion.
Saskia Walker
About Finnish Manhood
Samuli Salonen
Finnish male poses: by the water, in front of the sauna, in the forest. They just stand there. But one can listen to them. They talk about closed-off feelings. And the desire to open up.
About Finnish Manhood
Credits
Producer
Samuli Salonen (Kino Euphoria)
Director
Samuli Salonen
Cinematographer
Samuli Salonen
Editor
Samuli Salonen
Script
Samuli Salonen
Sound
Samuli Salonen
One is staring out at the sea. The other is standing in the forest. One is trying to throw a basket. And there, in front of the sauna hut, someone is leaning against the railing. Men. Finnish men. Almost all of them share one thing: a state of emotional repression, deeply entrenched in their own self-conception. What seems frozen at first is quickly released – you just have to be willing to listen. “But if you can’t talk about feelings, then you can’t feel much,” one of them confesses. This is an invitation to talk.
Carolin Weidner
Carolin Weidner
Above the Styx
Maria Stoianova
Easter on a Kiev cemetery: People flock to the graves of their beloved ones, dine with them and celebrate life. An intimate social study of a country rich in traditions.
Above the Styx
Documentary Film
Ukraine
2019
29 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Maria Stoianova
Director
Maria Stoianova
Music
Anna Khvyl
Cinematographer
Maria Stoianova, Yulia Danylchuk, Maria Terebus, Liudmyla Paraskiva, Kateryna Rybachuk, Anastasiya Feshchuk, Ivan Bershadskyi, Alla Onopchenko
Editor
Maria Stoianova
Script
Maria Terebus
Sound
Andrii Rogachov
A young man meticulously sticks plastic flowers into the ground. An elderly couple arrange a picnic right next to a grave. A small cake, sandwiches, eggs. It’s Easter on a Kyiv cemetery. Countless people flock to the graves of their loved ones to celebrate life, commemorate the dead and collect a few drops of holy water from the priest. The group of filmmakers has made an accomplished intimate social study of the rich traditions of their homeland.
Julia Weigl
Julia Weigl
Absolute Beginners
Fabrizio Terranova
A delicate and very touching film about the art of consciously feeling and enjoying life despite a fatal disease that changes everything. Carpe diem.
Absolute Beginners
Credits
Producer
Fabien Siouffi
Director
Fabrizio Terranova
Music
Lawrence Le Doux
Cinematographer
Tristand Galand
Editor
Bruno Tracq
Script
Fabrizio Terranova
Sound
Nicolas Lebecque
If you’re not affected you have probably never heard of Huntington’s disease. But the hereditary genetic defect changes absolutely everything: the ability to control one’s body, contact with one’s soul, moods and emotions, the level of available energy … and last but not least the relationships with loved ones. There is no cure to date, but a test to find out before the outbreak of the disease whether you carry this genetic mutation.
The six people who very emotionally and honestly talk about their lives here have all tested positive, though they are at different stages of the disease. For fear of social ostracism, some of them only speak anonymously in front of the camera. Not all of them are ready yet to “show face” and admit to having the disease, which to outsiders often looks like severe dementia or a mental handicap, although every one of the persons who offer insights here impressively disproves such popular misunderstandings. What emerges clearly is that, when faced with incurable disease, we are always also faced with the question of how we can integrate the risk of mortality into our concept of life. Upon closer examination, though, this philosophical problem concerns each of us. A cinematic carpe diem and an ode to life.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
The six people who very emotionally and honestly talk about their lives here have all tested positive, though they are at different stages of the disease. For fear of social ostracism, some of them only speak anonymously in front of the camera. Not all of them are ready yet to “show face” and admit to having the disease, which to outsiders often looks like severe dementia or a mental handicap, although every one of the persons who offer insights here impressively disproves such popular misunderstandings. What emerges clearly is that, when faced with incurable disease, we are always also faced with the question of how we can integrate the risk of mortality into our concept of life. Upon closer examination, though, this philosophical problem concerns each of us. A cinematic carpe diem and an ode to life.
Luc-Carolin Ziemann
After the Silence
Sonam Larcin
How do coming out and applying for asylum fit together? Better than feared in this film by Sonam Larcin. The story of a slow arrival, in warm tones and tender gestures.
After the Silence
Credits
Producer
Véronique Duys (Médiadiffusion)
Director
Sonam Larcin
Cinematographer
Axel Meernout
Editor
Louis Rousseau
Script
Sonam Larcin
Sound
Igor Van De Putte, Ferri Van Overstraeten
“Tell me your story” – a request that should please anyone. A difficult one, though, when it’s directed at a young man in a Brussels office who is looking for asylum and has never admitted his homosexuality to anyone in his entire life. But it may also be an opportunity. And a good premise for telling the story in front of a film camera. A film about a slow arrival, in warm tones and tender gestures.
Silvia Hallensleben
Silvia Hallensleben
Andes Uprising, a Buffer City Re-Inventing Itself Through Architecture
Bernardo Villagra Meruvia
El Alto, Bolivia, is growing fast – wild, but not shapeless.
Andes Uprising, a Buffer City Re-Inventing Itself Through Architecture
Documentary Film
Germany
2019
14 minutes
Subtitles:
English
German
Credits
Producer
Bernardo Villagra Meruvia
Director
Bernardo Villagra Meruvia
Editor
Bernardo Villagra Meruvia
El Alto, Bolivia, is growing fast – wild, but not shapeless. An investigation into urban aesthetics comes across the Cholets: miniature palaces which serve as residential and business premises for wealthy indigenous Aymara families. The colourful, shining constructions may resemble spaceships lost in the urban wastelands. But a double movement of expert commentary and city symphony lays bare the social foundations of this eclectic architecture.
Lukas Foerster
Lukas Foerster
Aura
Timm Völkner
Migraine is a lifelong unchosen companion. “Aura” tells a visually impressive and intense tale about life with it and the attempt to become reconciled to it.
Credits
Producer
Fabienne Priess
Director
Timm Völkner
Music
Andreas Skandy
Editor
Timm Völkner
Animation
Timm Völkner, Ryoji Yamada
Script
Timm Völkner
Sound
Jan Brett
A voice speaks in very intimate terms to a lifelong, not self-chosen companion. Remarkably creative and precise, Timm Voelkner guides us through a flow from one image to the next, building bridges between the emotional states of a person suffering from classical migraine and the perception disorders in the aura phase. In only two minutes, the film tells a visual and intense tale of life with an often underestimated disorder and of the attempt to get reconciled to it.
André Eckardt
André Eckardt
Autobahn
Daniel Abma
Traffic on the B 61 through the spa town of Bad Oeynhausen is permanently gridlocked. The promised cure is a bypass whose construction is documented here: with residents and passers-by.
Autobahn
Credits
Producer
Niklas Burghardt, Johannes Wöpkemeier
Director
Daniel Abma
Music
Henning Fuchs
Cinematographer
David Schittek
Editor
Momas Schütze
Script
Daniel Abma
Sound
Malte Eiben
The spa town of Bad Oeynhausen: Every day, thousands of trucks roll through the city centre and over the B 61 federal road which connects the A 2 and A 30 motorways, respectively Warsaw and Rotterdam. When the threat of losing its status as a health resort looms on the horizon, which means losing the inviting title of “Bad”, something has to change: A bypass is to be built.
Over a period of eight years, the film documents the gridlocked traffic at this bottleneck, the efforts of the mayor, police, fire brigade and construction companies, the delays in the construction of the northern bypass and above all the reactions of the affected residents. The latter look forward to some quiet and relief – or will soon have the motorway right in front of their door. The long-term documentation focuses less on the large-scale infrastructural measures than on their consequences for the people living by the roadside. Other stories are “picked up” there with a fine instinct for unusual characters and leaving lots of space for their personalities and quirks. These include the local tradition of counting trucks on the federal road or the construction site as well as taking a walk or jogging on the long unfinished section of the road.
Frederik Lang
Over a period of eight years, the film documents the gridlocked traffic at this bottleneck, the efforts of the mayor, police, fire brigade and construction companies, the delays in the construction of the northern bypass and above all the reactions of the affected residents. The latter look forward to some quiet and relief – or will soon have the motorway right in front of their door. The long-term documentation focuses less on the large-scale infrastructural measures than on their consequences for the people living by the roadside. Other stories are “picked up” there with a fine instinct for unusual characters and leaving lots of space for their personalities and quirks. These include the local tradition of counting trucks on the federal road or the construction site as well as taking a walk or jogging on the long unfinished section of the road.
Frederik Lang
Bekar Evi – Das Junggesellenhaus
Dirk Schäfer
Life is no picnic, especially not for Kurdish bachelors in Istanbul. Seven seasonal workers live in an unusual flat share in a dilapidated house.
Bekar Evi – Das Junggesellenhaus
Documentary Film
Germany
2019
76 minutes
Subtitles:
English
German
Credits
Producer
Dirk Schäfer
Director
Dirk Schäfer
Music
Deborah Wargon
Cinematographer
Nikola Krivokuca
Editor
Dirk Schäfer
Sound
Metin Bozkurt
Life is no picnic, especially not for a Kurdish bachelor in Istanbul. Seven single seasonal workers from Eastern Anatolia live in a dilapidated house in the metropolis. The men from two generations form an unusual flat sharing community. They live and sleep at extremely close quarters, sharing a single shower, which occasionally leads to heated arguments: typical flat share disputes about doing the dishes or tidying up. The older among them settle them with fatherly authority.
The protagonists talk about their origins and dreams. The German filmmaker Dirk Schäfer, who has lived in Istanbul for a long time, interweaves their poetic descriptions with sensitive observations of their partnership of convenience. Experiences of social discrimination and chicanery leave their traces, but humour and friendship make their life easier – or, as one of the “bachelors” puts it with a touch of humour: Now he is a street seller of Ottoman sugar paste to lend some sweetness to his life.
Annina Wettstein
The protagonists talk about their origins and dreams. The German filmmaker Dirk Schäfer, who has lived in Istanbul for a long time, interweaves their poetic descriptions with sensitive observations of their partnership of convenience. Experiences of social discrimination and chicanery leave their traces, but humour and friendship make their life easier – or, as one of the “bachelors” puts it with a touch of humour: Now he is a street seller of Ottoman sugar paste to lend some sweetness to his life.
Annina Wettstein
Bird Island
Maya Kosa, Sergio Da Costa
A bird haven is a miraculous refuge for injured wild birds – and for the protagonist Antonin, who takes up work there after a long illness.
Bird Island
Credits
Producer
Joëlle Bertossa, Flavia Zanon
Director
Maya Kosa, Sergio Da Costa
Cinematographer
Sergio Da Costa
Editor
Gabriel Gonzalez, Maya Kosa, Sergio Da Costa
Script
Maya Kosa, Sergio Da Costa
Sound
Xavier Lavorel
After a long illness and isolation Antonin takes up work in a bird sanctuary. He is still fighting with fatigue, a consequence of his illness. The new colleagues patiently give him time to arrive. In this small cosmos, Antonin gets as much protection as the patients. Some of the wild birds are delivered with serious injuries, some are in shock. They need the absolute dedication of the veterinarian and the nurse – and get it. None of them are unfazed by the loud roaring of the nearby airport.
Antonin reports about the station as an off screen narrator in diary-like entries. In literary language he explains work processes and describes the fates of the swans, eagle owls or crows. The interactions within the team and the treatment of the animals are also shown, in a minimalist way. The film oscillates between stylised artificiality and documentary observation. The warm-hearted story of this wondrous place gently evolves into a fable about rescuing animals – and humans – in need.
Annina Wettstein
Awarded with the Healthy Workplaces Fim Award.
Antonin reports about the station as an off screen narrator in diary-like entries. In literary language he explains work processes and describes the fates of the swans, eagle owls or crows. The interactions within the team and the treatment of the animals are also shown, in a minimalist way. The film oscillates between stylised artificiality and documentary observation. The warm-hearted story of this wondrous place gently evolves into a fable about rescuing animals – and humans – in need.
Annina Wettstein
Awarded with the Healthy Workplaces Fim Award.
Black Hole
Arnaud Deshayes, Emmanuel Grimaud
Two French filmmakers trawl the unconscious for clues to find the ghosts of India’s colonial past there. Therapeutic, hypnotic, richly emblematic.
Black Hole
Documentary Film
France
2019
69 minutes
Subtitles:
English
French
Credits
Producer
Giulia Olivieri, Fabrizio Polpettini
Director
Arnaud Deshayes, Emmanuel Grimaud
Cinematographer
Arnaud Deshayes, Emmanuel Grimaud
Editor
Arnaud Deshayes, Emmanuel Grimaud, Gabriel Gonzalez
Script
Arnaud Deshayes, Emmanuel Grimaud
Sound
Mikaël Barre
A dark room. The focus is on a woman’s relaxed face. The cherry-red lips are starting to move. The eyes are closed. In trance, a young Indian woman slips into her earlier incarnations – for example the role of a liberal man who fought for equality and freedom. While her body seems to fade into the black background, her re-experience becomes clearer and more visual.
Trupti Jayin, a well-known hypnotherapist in Kolkata, uses the image of the black hole for her patients. If they dare make the leap into the dark nothingness, they may be able to enter more deeply into their subconscious, find or even come to terms with repressed memories. In India’s colonial history, though, the so-called “Black Hole” has a different meaning. The eponymous 18th century prison where some British soldiers died is still regarded as a historical blind spot today, where myth and reality have become indistinguishable. The French filmmakers Emmanuel Grimaud and Arnaud Deshayes go in search of traces in the subconscious to confront the ghosts of the past there. In private and in public. Because in addition to the hypnotherapy sessions, we follow a group of ghost hunters who chase the restless souls through the dark alleys and empty houses of the West Bengali capital.
Julia Weigl
Trupti Jayin, a well-known hypnotherapist in Kolkata, uses the image of the black hole for her patients. If they dare make the leap into the dark nothingness, they may be able to enter more deeply into their subconscious, find or even come to terms with repressed memories. In India’s colonial history, though, the so-called “Black Hole” has a different meaning. The eponymous 18th century prison where some British soldiers died is still regarded as a historical blind spot today, where myth and reality have become indistinguishable. The French filmmakers Emmanuel Grimaud and Arnaud Deshayes go in search of traces in the subconscious to confront the ghosts of the past there. In private and in public. Because in addition to the hypnotherapy sessions, we follow a group of ghost hunters who chase the restless souls through the dark alleys and empty houses of the West Bengali capital.
Julia Weigl
Blieschow
Christoph Sarow
Tom spends his summer holidays at his grandfather’s, where many things are thrillingly beautiful, some scary and others rough, like his cousin, for example, and farm life.
Blieschow
Animated Film
Germany
2019
9 minutes
Subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
Credits
Producer
Lena-Carolin Lohfink
Director
Christoph Sarow
Music
Andreas Pfeiffer
Cinematographer
Christoph Sarow
Editor
Christoph Sarow
Animation
Christoph Sarow, Sofiia Melnyk, Janina Putzker, Laura Staab, Sarah Schulz, Maria Schmidt
Script
Christoph Sarow, Simon Thummet
Sound
Marc Fragstein, Luis Schöffend
Gameboy in hand, a ramble through the ripe cornfield, the island in the Baltic Sea lying there in the yellow sunlight. It’s summer and Tom is spending his holidays at his grandfather’s, where many things are thrillingly beautiful, some scary and others rough, like his cousin, for example, and farm life. With great sensitivity and in strong, warm colours, Christoph Sarow tells of a small step on the path towards growing up and, with magnificent associative images, allows us insights into the boy’s emotional world.
André Eckardt
André Eckardt
Book-Paper-Scissors
Hirose Nanako
Kikuchi Nobuyoshi is an old-school book designer. In his studio in Tokyo, he uses sheets of paper, adhesive tape and rulers to design minimalist works of art of great sensitivity.
Book-Paper-Scissors
Credits
Producer
Kitahara Eiji, Amy Aoyama
Director
Hirose Nanako
Music
biobiopatata, Suzuki Tsunekichi
Cinematographer
Hirose Nanako
Editor
Hirose Nanako
As a book designer, Kikuchi Nobuyoshi has drafted more than 10,000 covers. Working the traditional way, with graph paper, ruler, printed-out Kanji (the Japanese letters) and tape, every copy is first created by the most delicate haptic work, before his assistant, with whom he has been collaborating for more than thirty years, transfers the finished design to the computer. Kikuchi’s books represent a considered, minimalist aesthetics in which every single element – cover, binding, spine, marker ribbon – continues the story he encountered while reading it. Renowned writers like Furui Yoshikichi, who translated Robert Musil and others into Japanese, trust the intuition and skill of Kikuchi, who claims that he has grown increasingly empty over the decades. In her gentle portrait, director Hirose Nanako shows a man whose whole lifestyle is shaped by an elegant and cultivated attitude to things – whether it’s brewing freshly ground coffee, using an old gramophone or strolling through a Tokyo flea market.
Carolin Weidner
Carolin Weidner
Brand
Jan Koester, Alexander Lahl
Markus is the Honorary Mayor of Tröglitz. Together with his wife, he campaigns for taking in forty refugees in 2015. That’s when “his” commune suddenly shows a strange and ugly face.
Credits
Producer
Max Mönch
Director
Jan Koester, Alexander Lahl
Music
Hannes Schulze
Cinematographer
Jan Koester
Editor
Jan Koester
Animation
Jan Koester
Script
Elise Landschek
Sound
Hannes Schulze
Markus is Honorary Mayor in Saxony-Anhalt. In 2015, he and his wife commit themselves to providing shelter for forty refugees. Then “his” commune of Tröglitz takes on a strange visage: The population is disturbingly polarised and suddenly the refugee home is on fire. This animated documentary tries to understand what happened. Dark hatchings and shadings are contrasted with idyllic watercolour landscapes and bear witness to things that are lost and things that must be resolved.
Nadja Rademacher
Nadja Rademacher
Bread, Revenge?
Stefan Hayn
A filmed reading, the past evoked. A historical-political essay about how to deal with German guilt, based on texts by the French resistance fighter Robert Antelme.
Bread, Revenge?
Documentary Film
France,
Germany
2019
76 minutes
Subtitles:
English
German
Credits
Producer
Stefan Hayn (Stefan Hayn Filme und Malerei)
Director
Stefan Hayn
Cinematographer
Till Megerle
Editor
Stefan Hayn
Script
Stefan Hayn
Sound
Klaus Barm
In 1944, the French resistance fighter Robert Antelme was captured by the Germans. He was taken to Gandersheim, a satellite camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. In the last months of the Second World War, Antelme got to experience the whole extent of dehumanisation under National Socialist tyranny. Soon after his liberation he wrote the book “The Human Race” about it, which today is a classic of coming to terms with the past.
Stefan Hayn already dealt with Antelme in his film “Straub” (2014). Now he examines in more detail a series of texts which contributed to the post-war debate about how to deal with German guilt. Hayn calls his film a “lecture filmée” in the opening credits, a “filmed reading”. It is of crucial importance that the texts (including reflections on a theft of bread among prisoners) are present in the French original, even if recited by German native speakers. Different forms of “reading” that culminate in a sketch-like scenic re-enactment are interlaced with contemporary shots of memorial sites today to form a multi-layered film essay, historical-political in the best sense.
Bert Rebhandl
Stefan Hayn already dealt with Antelme in his film “Straub” (2014). Now he examines in more detail a series of texts which contributed to the post-war debate about how to deal with German guilt. Hayn calls his film a “lecture filmée” in the opening credits, a “filmed reading”. It is of crucial importance that the texts (including reflections on a theft of bread among prisoners) are present in the French original, even if recited by German native speakers. Different forms of “reading” that culminate in a sketch-like scenic re-enactment are interlaced with contemporary shots of memorial sites today to form a multi-layered film essay, historical-political in the best sense.
Bert Rebhandl
Das Fieber
Katharina Weingartner
Africa is still ruled by malaria. A thriller about the larger connections between the parasite and the pharmaceutics industry, claims of heteronomy and the richest man on earth.
Das Fieber
Credits
Producer
Markus Wailand
Director
Katharina Weingartner
Cinematographer
Siri Klug
Editor
Andrea Wagner
Animation
Toby Cornish
Script
Katharina Weingartner
Sound
Patrick Becker, Peter Braeker
The fight won’t end. Malaria still rules large parts of Africa. Every 60 seconds a child south of the Sahara dies of the disease. All in all, it causes around half a million deaths per year. But why is it so impossible to successfully conquer the disease, even though countless relief organisations have been working on a solution for many years?
The reason, of course, is money, global conflicts of interest, the powerful pharmaceutical industry. That’s nothing new. But the Austrian filmmaker Katharina Weingartner produced an enthralling documentary thriller which literally inscribes exciting, context-shifting and -widening lines of connection into the more or less familiar general picture: connections between the parasite and the pharmaceutical industry, between self-determination in East Africa and the richest man in the world. The focus is on three courageous people in Uganda and Kenya who are fighting the disease on the spot and are often more successful with alternative methods than Western medicine is comfortable with. Because after all a solution of their own, without foreign help and technology, without the mercantile and public philanthropic interests of the helpers, would mean independence.
Julia Weigl
The reason, of course, is money, global conflicts of interest, the powerful pharmaceutical industry. That’s nothing new. But the Austrian filmmaker Katharina Weingartner produced an enthralling documentary thriller which literally inscribes exciting, context-shifting and -widening lines of connection into the more or less familiar general picture: connections between the parasite and the pharmaceutical industry, between self-determination in East Africa and the richest man in the world. The focus is on three courageous people in Uganda and Kenya who are fighting the disease on the spot and are often more successful with alternative methods than Western medicine is comfortable with. Because after all a solution of their own, without foreign help and technology, without the mercantile and public philanthropic interests of the helpers, would mean independence.
Julia Weigl
