In the early 2000s, Maria Nikolaidou took a photo on Munich’s “Panzerwiese” (tank meadow): Her son Alexandros and another little boy playing war. A woman with angel’s wings wraps her arms protectively around the two of them. Twenty-three years later, mother and son return to the spot where the black and white photo was taken. Alexandros now uses the same camera to make a photo film about the image and also meets with his former playmate. Their voice-over memories and associations reveal different perspectives and moods. The history and stories behind a photograph are being reconstructed: What was overlooked at the time? Why were Alexandros’ grandparents not allowed to give him a gun? Who is the person on the hill in the background? In the end, a new image emerges.

Anke Leweke

A Slavic legend whose essence can also be found in Tibetan records inspired the two Soviet scientists Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov to formulate their “Hollow Moon” hypothesis in 1970. In this hypnotic film, the Hungarian director, autodidact and graphic designer Sándor Reisenbüchler probes the theory in a highly poetical manner, sending us across the centuries from an imagined past to a distant future. His unmistakeable collages, which he brought to life with meticulous precision working alone at the animation table, combined with experimental moving image material, recall memories of analogue projections and the liquid light shows of the 1960s. Organic shapes and colourful patterns generate a fascinating pull which carries us through a magical portal into a hypothetical space ship inside the moon.

Franka Sachse

When the writer Jan Christ talks about himself and his work, the words take on a life of their own. “The asshole in which I exist”, he says, referring to his progressive dementia, which causes not only the loss of memory, but also of language and authority. He is working on his last great oeuvre, a “Buch vom Grunde” (Book from the Depth). He struggles for lofty words. As an artist, he supports the artistic work of his daughter, who accompanies him with her camera during his final eight years. He directs himself or allows himself to be directed, while the filmmaker insists and does care work at the same time. In between, we see a vixen roaming the nocturnal streets of Berlin. Tete Hoffmann’s portrait of her father is at once a tribute, a confrontation, a crafty game and a helpless observation of the disintegration of a beloved person. Who has the right here to get attention, and when? Is it still permissible to continue exploring when the father and the writer have drifted apart? Clinging to language is contrasted with the letting go of images. “You are a vixen”, the brilliant father tells his brilliant daughter.

Jan Künemund