A film by Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles

Language: Portuguese and English - Subtitles: English

TRAILER

WATCH BACURAU HERE

Cannes Film Festival 2019 – Winner Jury Prize

Sitges 2019 – Winner Best Director

A young woman returns home to the small and remote Bacurau from the funeral of her hometown’s matriarch. The inhabitants of the town are plagued: the new major has shut down the water supply, there are barely any medicines left. On TV, executions from far-off cities are broadcast, a drone hovers over the village and mysterious bikers appear. Contact to the outside world breaks off and one night, horses gallop through the streets, just like a bad omen. 

Not far away, Michael (Udo Kier) leads safari-hunters through the area. Money and privilege give them access to everything they can think of. They get closer to the colourful, utopian society, where everyone is regarded the same. A confrontation of humanity, post-colonial structures, blanc capitalism and imperialistic cleansing appears inevitable.

[trigger warning: murder, explicit violence]

Feature film, BRA 2019, OmeU, Duration: 132min., with: Bárbara Colen, Sonia Braga, Udo Kier, Thomas Aquino, Silvero Pereira

A film by Matthew Rankin

Language: English

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WATCH THE TWENTIETH CENTURY HERE 

Interview with director Matthew Rankin available here

Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Winner FIPRESCI Prize

Toronto International Film Festival 2019 – Winner Best Canadian First Feature Film

For five legislative periods, William Lyon Mackenzie King was the Canadian prime minister. Compared to his contemporaries Roosevelt and Churchill, he had a shy na-ure, and his charisma was supposedly as lousy as his leadership qualities. Director Matthew Rankin uses his diaries, published posthumously, as a canvas for an una-bashdly bizarre political grotesque on King's rise to becoming Canadas most powerful politician. 

Imagine Monty Python in a fever dream, Dali with a boot fetish–filmed on 16mm film in the aesthetic of early film. No? Not enough? Maybe an ejaculating cactus, then? 

Even if it is about a piece of Canadian history very few people would be interested in: This film is in any case a biting commentary of human behaviour in politics.

Feature film, Gonzo-History/Comedy/Drama, CAN 2019, OV, Duration: 90min.,with: Dan Beirne, Marianne Cormier, Catherine St-Laurent, Mikhaïl Ahooja, Brent Skag-ford, Seán Cullen, Louis Negin, Kee Chan i.a.

A film by Lila Avilés

Language: Spanish - Subtitles: English

TRAILER

WATCH THE CHAMBERMAID HERE

Interview with director Lila Avilés available here

Mexican Contribution to the 92nd Oscars

Eve (Gabriela Cartol) is working a full-time job at a luxury hotel in Mexico City, her daily work is characterised by a draining routine. Cleaning up ravaged rooms, changing sheets. She does her work reliably and efficiently. Always in the hope to climb in the hotel hierarchy to improve her circumstances. In one of the City‘s suburbs, far from the hotel, she lives with her son, whom she calls from work as often as possible. In her gray, rationalised every day life, in the staff elevators, staircases and rooms, Eve seems to be slowly becoming invisible. She has to learn that hopes will be disappointed, desires remain unfulfilled and dreams burst.

La Camarista is a mercyless, painful portrait of a young employee in one of the numerous fine hotels in the Mexican capital. With a slow but steady gaze (á la Akerman) and an eye for detail, Avilés shows the dead-end, socially unacceptable fate of a hotel employee.

Fiction, MEX 2018, OmeU, Duration: 102 Min., with: Gabriela Cartol, Teresa Sánchez, Agustina Quinc

A film by Quentin Dupieux

Language: Französisch - Subtitles: English

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WATCH MONSIEUR KILLERSTYLE HERE 

100 percent deerskin! George’s – who is completely broke and has been thrown out by his wife – last solace: A ridiculously tight Cowboy-jacket. A free camcorder was included in the 8,000 Euros that “the beast” cost. His access to the marital bank account was permanently blocked after this last purchase, but it was worth it. Equipped with new confidence, he passes himself off as a famous filmmaker in front of bar keeper Denise. Because she is, incidentally, an editor and he is so broke that he had to leave his wedding ring as collateral for the hotel room, he summarily ropes her in for his upcoming shoot – on the condition that she keeps him, until his producers contact him again, of course. 

The topic of the film: the jacket made from 100 percent deerskin. The obsession with it slowly gets out of hand, when George manifests the desire that he would like to be the world’s last bearer of jackets. Iconic director Quentin Dupieux bows deeply before the thought-occupying power of the leatherjacket in this absurdly consistent comedy. 

[Triggerwarnung: explicit violence]

Fiction, F 2019 / OmeU, Duration: 77 Min. Director und Script, Camera und Editor: Quentin Dupieux, Sound: Cyril Holtz, Guillaume Le Braz, Music: Janko Nilovic, Producers: Mathieu Verhaeghe, Thomas Verhaeghe, with: Jean Dujardin, Adèle Haenel, Albert Delpy, Coralie Russier, Laurent Nicolas u. a.

A film by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka

Language: English and Xhosa - Subtitles: English

TRAILER

WATCH KNUCKLE CITY HERE 

Durban International Film Festival 2019 – Winner Best Actor

Dudu is a washed-up boxer, who rather poorly provides for his ever-growing family. The womanizer prefers to spend time with female classmates of his oldest daughter or exercising vainly for his comeback. When his little brother Duke is released from prison, this one turns the already fragile family further upside down with his criminal energy.„Everything for the family“, Dudu took on from his murdered father. While he therefore tries everything to get Duke back on the right track, he himself wanders on dangerous paths. But maybe this way he will get a chance to settle long forgotten quarrels?

Knuckle City is an authentic genre film with an energetic soundtrack. The raw perspective on impoverished post-apartheid South African province does not sugarcoat anything and reveals machismo and male demonstration of power that has developed out of hopelessness.

[trigger warning: violence]

Drama/Crime, SA 2019, OmeU, Duration: 120 min., with: Bongile Mantsai, Thembekile Komani, Patrick Ndlovu, Faniswa Yisa, Siv Ngesi i.a.

A film by Zacharias Kunuk

Language: English and Inuktitut - Subtitles: English / German

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WATCH ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF NOAH PIUGATTUK HERE

1961. A wall is built in Germany, the first man travels to space and John F. Kennedy ends segregation in the United States. What history does not tell: Another indigenous nation is uprooted. On the Baffin Islands in the very north of Canada, Noah Piugattuk and his clan leave their camp to hunt. 

On their first break, a white man approaches them on his dogsled carrying gifts and a translator. The Canadian government sent him; the Inuit are supposed to move to a reservation and send their children to school. But the Inuit will not consider giving up their nomadic lifestyle. A never-ending dialogue begins between the different languages, lost somewhere between comedy and hopelessness. 

In the midst of an icy snowscape, One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk represents the ruthless attack of the west on the habitat of the „First People“ all over the world. 

Feature film, CAN 2019, Original language, English/German subtitles, Length: 111 min., with: Apayata Kotierk, Kim Bodnia, Benjamin Kunuk and more

A film by Julien Elie

Language: Spanish and English - Subtitles: English

TRAILER

WATCH DARK SUNS HERE

Interview with director Julien Elie available here

Hamburg Film Festival 2019 – Winner Sichtwechsel Film Award

Cocain is one of the World’s most popular drugs, Mexico is one of its major exporters. Since the government started the War on Drugs, critical observers mainly interpret it as a war for distribution supremacy, tens of thousands of people have been killed, countless others have vanished. The reigning corruption makes it almost impossible to differentiate between actors.

Dark Suns creates an overview of the catastrophic consequences for the population, that before had never been compiled in its entirety. From femicides and human trafficking to modern forms of slavery, intimidation of the free press, and threatening situations for political activists, a comprehensively researched picture of a failed state a tthe border to the World’s largest economy emerges. Activists and the bereaved report what life is like in this state of exception that has lasted several years and on the un-certainty of their loved ones’ fate.

[trigger warning: Reports of violence, murder, rape]

Documentary, CA, MEX 2018, OmeU, Duration: 154 Min.

A film by Luke Lorentzen

Language: Spanish - Subtitles: English

TRAILER

WATCH MIDNIGHT FAMILY HERE 

Interview with director Luke Lorentzen available here

Academy Award shortlist for Best Documentary

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography Sundance FF

What does a city look like that has only 45 licensed abulances for nine million inhabitants? An entire network of thousands of self-proclaimed paramedics that mostly follow one goal in a city of corrupt police and rivaling businesses: reach accident scenes in wealthy districts first and take the injured to far-off private hospitals and receive high insurance payouts.

Midnight Family follows such an operation through it’s nightly battles in Mexico City: the family Ochoa, themselves driven by the need to secure their own survival. The documentary imparts the powerlessness of the Mexican city through its intricately choreographed action sequences and is defined by its absurdities. Street races among the ambulances are only one consequence of the shocking state of the system–whoever is there to help first gets payed.

[trigger warning: blood, traffic accidents]

Documentary, MEX/ USA 2019,OmeU, Duration: 81 Min.

A film by Kantemir Bagalov

Language: Russian - Subtitles: German

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WATCH BEANPOLE HERE 

Subtitles: German

Cannes Film Festival 2019 - Winner FIPRESCI Prize and Winner Un Certain Regard for Best Director

Peace is the continuation of hell. In fall 1945, poverty – bordering on starvation – is rampant in war - scarred Leningrad. Masha and Iya, who due to her tallness is also called beanpole, have been welded together by their joint fight for survival. When Masha’s son suffers an accident under Iya's care, the two of them feel it is their duty to cure the inner wounds in their mutual support. In doing so, however, the two women enter downward spirals of trangressions and mutual dependencies. 

With the story of Masha and Iya, Bagalov masterfully tells an exemplary tale of powerlessness in the face of post-traumatic momentums that scarred a whole generation in Europe. The film was inspired by storys from Swetlana Alexijevich’s documentary novel The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II that awards late recognition to female front-line veterans.

[trigger warning: Death of a child, euthanasia]

Drama, RUS 2019, OV with German Subtitles, Duration: 139 Min., with: Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Vasilisa Perelygina, Timofey Glazkov, Andrey Bykov, Igor Shirokov i.a.

A film by Jan Komasa

Language: Polish - Subtitles: English and German

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WATCH CORPUS CHRISTI HERE 

Does the Bible not say „Thou shall not lie?“ Twenty-year-old Daniel has found God in the youth penitentiary. However, due to his being a felon, he does not have a chance at getting a place in the seminary. Instead, he is sent to the other end of the country to work in a sawing mill. But opportunity presents itself and so it happens that he spontaneously pretends to be the new village pastor and that he can thusly follow his calling. Thanks to charisma and unorthodox methods, the impostor quickly conquers the hearts of the small community. And they seem to be in dire need of a new chaplain. Soon, Daniel uses his newly won authority to–against numerous oppositions–investigate a dark secret, which threatens to destroy the community from the inside. A special kind of cat-and-mouse game ensues, because his fraud is, after all, only secured by others’ belief in him.

Drama, POL/F 2019, OmeU, Duration: 116min., with: Bartosz Bielenia, Eliza Rycembel, Aleksandra Konieczna,Tomasz Ziętek, Leszek Lichota, i.a.

A film by Alexander Kluge, Khazvn De La Cruz

TRAILER

WATCH ORPHEA HERE 

Language: German, Subtitles: Englisch

Interview with director Alexander Kluge available here

Gender exchange in the Orpheus myth: An angelic-like Lilith Stangenberg is the celebrated star of the underground rock scene in the slums of Manila. As her Euridiko dies, she follows him into the underworld. With the power of her songs, she not only frees her lover. Orphea wants immortality for everyone. Alexander Kluge and the Filipino exceptional artist Khavn use this rock musical to present the standardized idea of what film art can be. Association chains packed in wild montages and a ride through the cultural history from Adorno to Ingmar Bergman lead to the realization that there must be a twist in Orpheu's failed death dance. Orphea not only wants her love back, she also wants a new beginning of art. In this sense, the two directors are true romantics.

Experimental Essay Film, D 2020, OmeU, 99min., with: Lilith Stangenberg, Ian Madrigal 

A film by Elke Margarete Lehrenkrauss

Trailer

WATCH LOVEMOBIL HERE

Language: German

More than twenty caravans are spread out along a main road in Lower Saxony. They are decorated with heart-shaped lights and colourful curtains. What sounds cosy are actually mobile brothels in which young women sleep, eat and most of all wait for customers. The dull atmosphere of the abandoned surroundings threatens to overwhelm as one of the women is murdered and the precarious situation of the sex workers becomes apparent. 

The filming of the documentary took three years, and it is a serious and impressive insight into an environment in which everyone fights for themselves alone. The film is carried by its three protagonists that offer an intimate view into their lives and their efforts to escape their hopeless microcosm. 

The first feature film by director Elke Margarete Lehrenkrauss was acclaimed at festivals in Los Angeles, Braunschweig and Osnabrück among others and is currently in the running for the Deutscher Filmpreis. 

[Trigger warning: sexual violence] 

Documentary, D 2019, Length: 103 min

A film by Melanie Waelde

Trailer

WATCH NACKTE TIERE HERE 

Language: German, Subtitles: English

Interview with director Melanie Waelde available here

Honorable mention at the GWFF Award Best Debut Film at the 2020 Berlinale

Youth, lost in the boondocks. Katja and her friends run into each other, catch hits with fists, kiss each other and run away from each other again. Closeness and pain are one and the same. Between social housing in industrialized apartment blocks, the freedom of a drivers license and dysfunctional homes, in their last winter together before they graduate, they dream of the world out there and still they do not know whether they want to let each other go.

The raw physicality with which the „naked animals“ caterwaul at each other here, has long been unseen in German cinema. Like the confined 4:3 format of the camera, the teenagers do not know the horizon. There is just the way straight ahead, against the wall. In the center of Melanie Waeldes coming-of-age feature film debut: the tremendously winning intensity of strength and vulnerability of leading actress Marie Tragousti.

Fiction Film, D 2020, OmeU, Duration: 83 Min., with: Marie Tragousti, Sammy Scheuritzel, Michelangelo Fortuzzi, Luna Schaller, Paul Michael Stiehler

A film by Mala Reinhardt

Trailer

WATCH DER ZWEITE ANSCHLAG HERE 

Language: German, Subtitles: English

Interview with director Mala Reinhardt available here

DOK Leipzig 2018: Commendable mention by the jury of the Ver.di Award for Solidarity, Humanity, and Fairness

Nominated for the Leipziger Ring Film Award and the Young Eyes Film Award

“Let’s ask ourselves how many in this room here know the people affected by the NSU.How many of the victims’ stories can we remember?” Ibrahim Arslan poses this ques-tion at an event of the “Unraveling the NSU Complex” tribunal. Racist attacks and kill-ingsrecur in Germany with a terrifying continuity. The media’s interest is thereby al-most exclusively focused on the perpetrators. In Der Zweite Anschlag, the victims get to speak themselves: About the terrorist at-tacks of the NSU, the racist arson attack in Mölln and the Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots. The protagonists’ stories weave together, since all of them advocate for a complete investigation and an end of the terror. Their accusations are aimed at a state that does not take action, a police force that has a structural right-wing problem of its own, and a population that encourages and supports this or looks away. A film that must be seen.

[trigger warning: Racism, right-wing terror]

Documentary, D 2018, German and Turkish with English subtitles, Duration: 62 Min., with: Mai Phương Kollath, Ibrahim Arslan, Osman Taşköprü, Özge Pınar Sarp, AyşeGüleç, Gülüstan Ayaz-Avcı

A film by Sara Hüther and Sita Scherer

WATCH AT THE MARGIN HERE

Language: German and Greek; Subtitles: English and German

Interview with the directors (available soon)

Special mention at the Goldener Herkules 2019, DOK Kassel 201

An island in a state of emergency: How do we cope when, all of a sudden, our home becomes the centre of international media-coverage? When the hurt and suffering of people fleeing, is closer and more tangible than ever? The inhabitants of Lesbos experienced this first-hand: in the winter of 2015, hundreds of boats reach the Greek island, having set sail from the Turkish mainland. Daily, up to three thousand asylum seekers arrive from the crisis areas of the Middle East and with them numerous journalists and volunteer workers from all over the world.

In At the Margin directors Sara Hüther and Sita Scherer, students of the Kunsthochschule Kassel, visualise th eunder-represented perspective of the Greek villagers. Instead of covering their story from the outside, they accompany people from three villages in Lesbos during their daily lives and give them the space to tell their own stories.

Documentary Ger/UK 2019, OmeU, Duration: 83 Min

A film by Inigo Westmeier

WATCH BLACK CHINA HERE 

Language: OV, Subtitles: English

Interview with director Inigo Westmeier and producer Lena Karbe available here

Guangzhou, China. Since the 1990s, this metropolis of millions attracts immigrants from various African countries – today, it is one of the cities in China with the highest population density of African immigrants. In this film, some of these people get to tell their stories: Who are they? Why did they leave their home country and what made them decide on this city specifically?

Black China gives insights into the life of the African immigrants in China. They report on their life, their work and their dreams, but also on difficulties and the racism that they encounter. The immigrants’ stories are as diverse as they themselves, but what unites them is their pursuit of their very own “Chinese Dream”. What does this dream look like today? 

The film by award-winning director Inigo Westmeier was supported financially by HessenFilm und Medien.

[triggerwarning: Racism]

Documentary, D 2018, OmeU, Duration: 69 Min.

A film by Vera Drude

WATCH LIEBE VIELE HERE 

Are human beings able to love more than one person? The eight polyamorous protagonists in Vera Drude’s documentary Liebe viele have a clear answer to this question: Yes! The film depicts their everyday life and portrays a way of living that is contrary to what society would designate as “normal”. Romantic relationships that go beyond two people, in which one person loves several partners, has relationships and shares their life with all of them. It is crucial that all involved persons are aware of this fact and that the relationships are lived consensually. As in monogamous relationships, insecurities, personal fears and expectations play a role and it becomes obvious that here in particular, communication and openness are key tools.

Documentary, D 2019, OV, Duration: 90 Min.

A film by Oliver Wörner

TRAILER

WATCH ES GEHT EINE DUNKLE WOLK HEREIN HERE 

Language: German

“Es geht ein dunkle Wolk herein, mich deucht, es wird ein Regen sein //Regenaus den Wolken, wohl in das grüne Gras” (A dark cloud is coming,I think there will be rain // rain out of the clouds into the green grass).

The events in this regional film of the special kind seem as anachronistic as the 16thcentury folk song cited above. A small piece of land in the Odenwald region with less than 300 inhabitants appears to be suspended in time. It seems like the industrialization of agriculture has not happened yet: Here, a farmer’s family still works in the same way as 50 years ago. In the midst of summery green meadows, the “three Hübners” perform their tasks with unwavering serenity.

Self-directed in a loving manner, this unobtrusive and calm film is produced by film professor (emeritus) Helmut Herbst from Offenbach

[trigger warning: explicit butchering scene]

Documentary, D 2019, Original language, Duration: 79 Min.     

A film by Aboozar Amini

TRAILER

WATCH KABUL, CITY IN THE WIND HERE 

Language: OV, Subtitles: German

Director Aboozar Amini talks about his film here

What happens if homeland is inevitably associated with a sense of fear? If courage alone is not enough to withstand the daily danger of war and the knowledge of the finitude of life haunts you to your dreams?

Kabul, City in the Wind is an atmospheric portrait of an unreal city, which means everything to the protagonists of this film. Aboozar Amini manages to capture the world of experience of two children and an indebted bus driver in his hometown in Afghanistan impressively and captivatingly. In painful and poetic images, he tells about his life and shares his feelings. A story of growing up, of war and terror, of work and survival, of longing and desires, of family and courage.

The two directors Julia Peters and Jutta Feit are responsible for the distribution with their jipfilm&verleih, which is located in the heart of Frankfurt.

NL 2018, OV with German Subtitles, Duration: 88 minutes 

A film by Maryam Zaree

TRAILER

WATCH BORN IN EVIN HERE 

Language: German, English, French, Farsi, Subtitles: German

Hessian Film Prize 2019: Newcomer award for Maryam Zaree

Berlinale 2019: Compass-Perspektive-Award in Section Perspektive Deutsches Kino(Perspectives on German Cinema

„Breaking the silence, even though talking might be difficult“ – this is what director and actor Maryam Zaree stated as her goal. Iran, 1979: After the takeover of Ayatollah Khomeini, the new religious leader, tens of thousands of political opponents were arrested and murdered. Among the arrested are Maryams parents, who are taken to the prison of Evin. There, Maryam is born. When she is a little girl, she and her mother flee to Germany. She grows up in Frankfurt, attends school, studies acting. She only knows little about her time in Iran. In Born in Evin, her debut as a director, she sets out to find answers about her past, her origin, and her roots. She talks to friends of her mother, to other women who were born in Evin, and to her parents themselves. She does not always find answers and open arms.

Documentary, GER/A 2019, Language: German, English, French, Farsi, Duration: 98 min.

A film by Lisa Charlotte Friederich

TRAILER

WATCH LIVE HERE 

Language: German, Subtitles: Englisch

Interview with director Lisa Charlotte Friederich and producer Rike Huy available here

The world of our near future is defined by terror. Because of the high terror risk, public events are prohibited, meeting others is barely possible and cultural life can only be enjoyed in the virtual realm. The psychologist Claire attends survivors of terrorist attacks. The atmosphere of fear and isolation consistently demoralizes her. So she and her brother Aurel, a famous trumpet player, decide to hold a live concert for a real audience. Helped by the hackers Ada and Maximus, they manage to realize their plans. But then the mother of the siblings appears...

The directing debut of actress and theatre scholar Lisa Charlotte Friederich atmospherically asks the question of the foundations of terror. Shot at a number of sceneries in Frankfurt, supported by the Frauenreferat, the maecenia Foundation as well as the cultural department of Frankfurt.

Feature film, D 2020, OV with German Subtitles, Dauer: 84min., with: Karoline Maria Reinke, Anton Spieker, Sonja Dengler, Corbinian Deller

A film by Jan Peters

TRAILER

WATCH 30 Jahre... HERE 

Language: German

On his 24th birthday private documentarian Jan Peters grabs his Super-8 camera and captures a moment of his still young life. Three minutes in which he looks into the camera and talks about his torn state between being an aspiring filmmaker and self-doubt. Then, an abrupt cut–as the Super-8 can only record that much on one reel. This is the beginning of an autobiographical experiment, which, with its elliptical narrative, condenses life to its essentials.

29 birthday-films follow: monologues in the bathtub, wild dance numbers and an ongoing engagement with the changing technology of the film apparatus. Peters, now a film professor at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, tells anecdotes of his childhood, of love, of growing into his role as father and a birthday invitation to Jean-Luc Godard.

Documentary, D 2019, OV, Duration: 90 Min., with: Jan Peters

WATCH REGIONAL SHORT FILM REEL I HERE

56’53 min.

DIE VERGÄNGLICHKEIT DES BERND HASSELHUHN (BERND HASSELHUHN’S EVANESCENCE)
D 2020
Duration: 08’10 Min
Director: Max Rainer 

If one suspects that one will be murdered soon, a visit at the police station is the obvious action. However, it isn’t as easy as that in the case of Bernd Hasselhuhn – because what he percieves as a deadly threat, most of us refer to as “ageing”. 

TIC TIC TACK (TIC TIC TOCK)
D 2019
Duration: 04’01 min.
Director: Theresa Lucas

Three interviewees, one filmmaker, numerous ticks. This deals with living with Tourette. Unexcitedly, Theresa Lucas translates the voice-over into articulate pictorial worlds.

§173
D 2019
Duration: 10’30 min.
Director: Niklas Bauer

A man and a woman meet, fall in love, want to share their lives, experience the world as a couple. But the §173 of the German Criminal Code makes their love a punishable offense.

SHEELA
D 2019
Duration: 09’46 Min
Director: Alma W. Bär 

What is she doing? Is she allowed to do that?!? … Centuries-old stone statues that aggressively present their vulvas are fascinating. Even more fascinating are contemporary reactions to them. Somewhere between live-action film and animation, Alma W. Bär associatively focusses on the female genital and its societal perception.

BASHE!
D 2018
Duration: 15’30 Min
Director: Aurelia Natalini

Four women in Iran that are taken up in their sport, find and fulfil themselves. All four follow their passion professionally. But the country in which they live is full of obstacles: Sport is hardly a topic, women in sports even less.

LIT DU PUNAISE (THE BEDBUG)
D 2019
Duration: 08’21 Min
Director: Axel Würsten

When the exterminator leaves, only to very few this means love is in the air. In Sara and Juan’s case, this is different… 

WAS THAT…?
D 2020
Duration: 00:05 Min
Director: Filip Dippel

Eyes open: It was! 

WATCH REGIONAL SHORT FILM REEL II 

61’49 min.

NACHTSCHICHT (NIGHTSHIFT)
D 2018
Duration: 21’00 Min
Director: David Dybeck

Already completely tired out, Réne has to start his nightshift at the kiosk. His hope for a calm shift is destroyed by annoying customers. And then there is this party where he could meet this one girl. The long longed-for sleep recedes into the distance…

EMPTY PLACES
D 2018
Dauer: 07’11 Min
Duration: Sheila Mae Breker

A place can be empty of people and still filled with memories, associations and emotions. These get a negative connotation, if a location becomes the site of verbal sexual molestation. 

QUANTUM
D 2019
Duration: 05’13 Min
Director: Stefan Vogt

A drawing of a graph for adults. 236.162.719 possibilities, and he takes the one. Of course, this is worth a round of applause.

SINKENDE SCHIFFE (SINKING SHIPS)
D 2019
Duration: 21’00 min.
Director: Andreas Kessler
Script: Stephan Kämpf

A family excursion. The sun is shining and the lake glitters. But Sara is a prisoner. Caught in a relationship full of violence and oppression. She wants to get out, she has to get out. And suddenly, there is an opportunity…

GLÜCKSKEKS (FORTUNE COOKIE)
D 2019
Duration: 02’01 min.
Directors: Leonard Mink & Eduard Eisinger 

What would you do, if you won the jackpot at the casino because you followed the wisdom from a fortune cookie? Exactly, you would buy more fortune cookies and follow their advice. Unfortunately, every streak of luck ends sooner or later.

WELTSCHMERZ
D 2019
Duration: 03’44 min.
Director: Lisa Mausbach

Weltschmerz can hardly be translated into any other language. But it can be translated into poetic images, for example those of the three protagonists portrayed. 

MEISENKNÖDEL – AKT I: EPIPHANIE (BIRD FAT BALL – ACT I: EPIPHANY)
D 2019
Duration: 01’29 min.
Director: Filip Dippel

The animated story of a flighty happiness: Like Bocuse at the tree, hardly believes she. Euphoria has seldom been this delightful. 

WATCH REGIONAL SHORT FILM REEL III 

53’35 Min

DER MITTELPUNKT (THE CENTER)

D 2019
Duration: 04’12 min.
Director: Simon Schares

Westerngrund in Aschaffenburg county used to be the center. Of what? Of the European Union. Just walk past in Adidas slippers? No problem. But Brexit has shifted the coordinates. Reason enough to jointly look at a guest book in this short documentary.

IM HÄUSCHEN VON HERRN VAN DEN BRINK (IN MR. VAN DEN BRINK’S COTTAGE)
D 2018
Duration: 15’00 min.
Director: Björn Renner

First, pretending to have big balls and then peeing one’s pants. When dealer Marcello and Heiko find themselves in a Garden gazebo after a wild chase, their only wish is to be free. But it is already way too late for that.

LEA PORCELAIN “THE LOVE” 
D 2019
Duration: 05’11 Min
Director: Jakob Schmidt

Muted colours, full sound and an animated road trip through an alien and bizarre scenery. When the drag on the cigarette becomes a maelstrom, just let yourself drift. 

RESTMÜLL (RESIDUAL WASTE)
D 2019
Duration: 09’14 Min
Director: Merlin Heidenreich

A fictional or future Frankfurt. Not for softies because waste removal is a hard business and when it comes to wrong separation, some people see red. The Germans’ favourite know-it-all-topic between shoot’em-up and bureaucracy. 

A CLOUD ON FIRE
D 2019
Duration: 15’00 min.
Director: Julie Gaston

People have different fears. But what does fear feel like? Like my own or like other’s? It takes a lot of effort to reveal one’s own fears. But if we step into the light, maybe the darkness that surrounds the fear will disappear. 

WIE ERKENNE ICH EINEN MANN/EINE FRAU AUF DEN ERSTEN BLICK – RIKES TUTORIAL (HOW DO I DISCERN A MAN/WOMAN AT FIRST GLANCE)
D 2018
Duration: 06’46 Min
Director: Rike Suhr

Who does not know it, the constant man-woman-dilemma? Thank goodness, Rike opens her sketchbook and demonstrates once and for all how this works. Of course, the easiest way is looking at the genitals…

WATCH THE INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM REEL HERE

Genius Loci - A film by Adrien Merigeau

Young Reine is on a search but she does not know what it is that she is looking for. By way of delicate drawings and flowing animations, we see the world through her eyes and her perception becomes palpable. Chaos reigns everywhere: in her head and outside in the big city. Things take on a life of their own. 

Animation, F / 2019, OmeU, Duration: 16 Min.

TESLA WORLD LIGHT / director’s cut - A film by Matthew Rankin

One man has so much brain power but is powerless in face of his own nightmares. Tesla World Light is an abstract biographical representation of emotional themes from Nikola Tesla’s utopian „World System“ of energy distribution. Explosive meldings of lightpainting, stop-motion, silhouettes and hand-painted celluloid.

Animation without dialogue, CDN, 2017, Duration: 8:09 Min.

Where is my body? - A film by Julian Pedraza

Since the 1980s, TV programmes in Latin America are dominated by telenovelas that supposedly represent a perfect life, in which romantic relationships lead to a Happy End and antagonists pay for their missdeads. How has this TV format influenced the perception of our identity and the roles that men and women play in real life?

Video Art, E / COL, 2018, Duration 07:35 Min.

A film by Dmitri Voloshin

WATCH ARIPI HERE 

VRdirect App Download-Code: Aripi

How does LICHTER-VR-On-Demand function?

The monotonous everyday life of a lonely astronaut becomes a hair-raising race against time due to a technical defect. With a lot of humour and speed, Aripi fully exploits the visual immersive potential of VR - a trip worth seeing, which convinces especially with its breathtaking camera movements. Don't forget to fasten your seatbelts!

"Cutely designed and lovingly told tragic-comedy"  - Kirsty van der Plas, Jury

MDA 2019, OV, Length: 8 min.

A film by Ricarda Saleh

WATCH PARIS TERROR - DIE GEISELN VOM HYPER CACHER HERE 

VRdirect App Download-Code: Paris

How does LICHTER-VR-On-Demand function?

In January 2015, terrorists raid the editorial offices of the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo". At the same time, another assassin invades the Jewish supermarket "Hyper Cacher" and kills four people. Further customers are taken hostage and locked up in a cold storage room. The film deals with the survivors' memories and lets the audience participate in the traumatic experiences and fears of these people in those uncertain hours of their imprisonment. A mix of animated sequences and filmed interviews maintains a respectful distance without trivializing anything. The medium of 360-degree film gives us an understanding of the fates of those affected with unexpected intimacy.

"The Film uses VR-technology in a targeted manner and with well-considered methodology. Generating a social impact it highlights the influence of technologies and their application on society." - Susanne Ahmadseresht, Jury.

D 2018, German OV, Duration: 10 min.

A film by DJ Clark

WATCH BATTLEGROUND POLYU HERE 

VRdirect App Code: PolyU

How does LICHTER-VR-On-Demand function?

The clash between protesters and police forces during the siege of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University at the end of 2019 in the course of the protests by the democracy movement is documented here in an impressive way and with a lot of personal commitment. A historical document to which the use of a 360° camera lends a visual impact.

"Great use of the medium to translate the tension of the situation. Good use of music and good transitions. A piece of great jurnalism." - Ioana Matei, Jury

HKG 2019, English OV, Duration: 8'45 min.

A film by Fabiano Mixo

WATCH CHILDREN DO NOT PLAY WAR HERE 

VRdirect App Download-Code: Children

How does LICHTER-VR-On-Demand function?

Since 1987, a brutal war has been raging in Uganda, led by the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), which wants to enforce a theocracy based on the 10 Commandments. Although the conflict has largely shifted to neighbouring countries since 2008, the traces it leaves behind are still noticeable today. Above all, the use of child soldiers has left scars on the few survivors that are still far from healing. In sad and beautiful panoramic shots of landscapes and life, from an observant distance, the film tells of a country that has lost its children.  

"Beautifully shot with good attention to height which made me feel fully immersed -  something regularly overlooked when filming children." - Kirsty van der Plas, Jury

USA/BRA/UGA 2019, English OV, Duration: 8 min.

A film by Lucy Greenwell

WATCH SONGBIRD HERE 

VRdirect App Downloadcode: Songbird

How does LICHTER-VR-On-Demand function?

An ornitologist is on the trail of a bird species believed to be extinct. A sudden discovery, followed by an unexpected encounter, tragically demonstrates the consequences of climate change to the scientist. It is above all the audio design that makes this animated film with documentary elements an intimate experience.

"Great storytelling and a very touching way to pass on the key message." - Ioana Matei, Jury

 UK/DNK 2018, English OV, Duration: 9 min.