22.04. ‐ 27.04.2025
Program 2021_eng_Header

The 14th LICHTER Filmfest ended on May 9th. We would like to thank all filmmakers, our audience and our partners and sponsors for a successful festival!

Find all details concerning our LICHTER Sommerkino from June 30th - July 04th HERE.

International Program on "Change"

Gagarine

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director:
 Fanny Liatard und Jérémy Trouilh
Feature Film, F 2020, 97min.

Language: Original with English and German subtitles

Trailer

Yuri lives in the Paris suburbs, is a future astronaut and a janitor. He has a brilliant idea to save his settlement from demolition.
[More information & Tickets]

Souterrain

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director: Sophie Dupuis
Feature Film, CAN 2020, 97 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles
International Premiere

Trailer

Maxime, a miner in Québec, risks his own life to save that of his buried colleagues. To make amends?
[More Information & Tickets]

Identifying Features (Sin señas particulares)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director: Fernanda Valadez
Feature Film, MEX 2020, 98 Min.
Language: Original with German subtitles
Hesse Premiere
Trailer

Magdalena from Mexico is looking for her son in the USA. But she realizes that she is just one of many looking for a loved one.

[More Information & Tickets]

Mogul Mowgli

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director:
 Bassam Tariq
Feature Film, UK, USA 2020, 89 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles
Trailer

The dream of European tour finally comes true! The world will hear your music, know your story! But then your body fails!
[More Information & Tickets]


The Wasteland (دشت خاموش)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
:
 Ahmad Bahrami
Feature Film, IRN 2020, 102 Min.
Language: 
Original with English subtitles
German Premiere
Trailer

Different people, all connected by the last traditional adobe factory in the countryside. Will this commonality be able to save them?
[More Information & Tickets]

The Metamorphosis of Birds (A Metamorfose dos Pássaros)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Catarina Vasconcelos
Documentary, PT 2020, 101 Min.
Language: 
Original with English subtitles
Trailer

Poetic images of nature and the story of a family scarred by tragedy. Father and daughter find each other again in the pain.
[More Information & Tickets]

The Truffle Hunters

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Michael Dweck und Gregory Kershaw

Documentary, ITA/USA/GR 2020, 84 Min.

Language: Original with English subtitles
Trailer

A film of Open Air Special in summer 2021

It’s a long, long journey for a truffle. From the depths of the underground in the Italian forests to an impeccable plate in a most expensive restaurant, The Truffle Hunters shows how a whole industry works. But at its very base, it all depends on some old guys and their dogs.

This is my Desire (Eyimofe)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director: Arie und Chuko Esiri
Feature Film, USA/NGA 2020, 116 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles
Trailer

Mofe and Rosa want to emigrate to Europe. But again and again they are mercilessly pulled back to Lagos by an invisible hand.
[More Information & Tickets]

Gull (Gal-mae-gi)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director: Mi-jo Kim
Feature Film, KOR 2020, 75 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles
Trailer

Obok is a content and frugal woman. But that changes when she becomes the victim of a crime.
[More Information & Tickets]


There is no Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director: Mohammad Rosoulof
Feature Film, IRN, DE, CZ 2020, 152 Min.
Language: Original with German subtitles
Trailer

In four independent episodes, his film tells of the impact of the death penalty on the lives of those who have to carry it out.
[Mehr Informationen & Tickets]


Quo Vadis, Aida?

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Jasmila Žbanić
Feature Film, BH 2021, 101 Min.

Language: Original with German subtitles
Trailer

In the midst of the war in Bosnia in 1995, a translator tries to protect her family. The drama shows the effects of political inaction.
[More Information & Tickets]

Madly in Life (Un vie démente)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
:
 Ann Sirot und Raphaël Balboni
Feature Film, BE 2020, 87 Min.
Language: 
Original with English subtitles

German Premiere
Trailer

With black humor, the film presents a wonderfully honest picture of what it's like when a loved one loses their mind.
[More Information & Tickets]

Never Gonna Snow Again (Śniegu już nigdy nie będzie)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Małgorzata Szumowska und Michał Englert
Feature Film, D/PL, 113 Min.
Language: 
Original with English and German subtitles
Trailer

As a masseur in a gated community, Zhenia learns the secrets of his rich clients through his job.
[More Information & Tickets]

Schoolgirls (Las niñas)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Pilar Palomero
Feature Film, ESP 2020, 97 Min
Language: 
Original with English subtitles
Trailer

A film of Open Air Special in summer 2021

There comes a point in the life of every child when they realize the world is much bigger than they thought. For 11-year-old Celia, that moment arrives when she meets Brisa, a new classmate at her Catholic school, and her life is turned upside down.

Acasă, My Home

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director:
Radu Ciorniciuc
Documentary, D/FIN/RO 2020, 84 Min.

Language: 
Original with English and German subtitles
Trailer

Torn from their independence in nature, forcibly relocated to the big city, a family in Bucharest must find themselves completely anew.
[More Information & Tickets]

Flashwood

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director: Jean-Carl Boucher
Feature Film, CAN 2020, 93 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles
German Premiere
Trailer

In Flashwood, the development of a group of young people is followed over seven years.
[More Information & Tickets]

Moon, 66 Questions (Selene, 66 Questions)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director: 
Jacqueline Lentzou
Feature Film, GR 2021, 108 Min.
Language
: Original with English subtitles
German Premiere
Trailer

The relationship between Artemis and her father is turned upside down by a stroke of fate. Can she now build a relationship with him?
[More Information & Tickets]

Valentina

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Cássio Pereira dos Santo
Feature Film, BRA 2020, 95 Min.
Language: 
Original with English subtitles
Deutschland Premiere
Trailer

Valentina flees with her mother from harassment and intolerance. In the countryside they hope for a new beginning for Valentina as a trans woman.
[More Information & Tickets]

The Man Who Sold His Skin

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Kaouther Ben Hania
Feature Film, TUN/F/D/BE/SWE 2020, 104 Min.

Language: Original with German subtitles
Also as an open air special in summer 2021

Trailer

Sam and his girlfriend are separated by the Syrian civil war. While he flees, she is pressured into marrying a Syrian diplomat.
[More Information & Tickets]

The Year of the Discovery (El año del descubrimiento)

Section: International Feature Film Program
Director
Luis López Carrasco
Documentary, ESP/CH 2020, 200 Min.
Language: Original with English and German subtitles
Trailer

For many people in Cartagena, Spain, life changed in 1992. This film shows the connection between politics and life.
[More Information & Tickets]

Film Series Future German Cinema

Walchensee Forever

Section: Future German Cinema
Director
Janna Ji Wonders
Documentary, D 2020, OV, 110 Min.

Language: Original version

Trailer

'Walchensee Forever' potrays the good times and the bad times of a family originating from Bavaria.
[More Information & Tickets]

Proxima

Section: Future German Cinema
Director
Alice Winocour
Feature Film, F/D 2020, 107 Min.

Language: Original with German subtitles

Trailer

Sarah wants to fly to Mars and is selected for the Proxima space mission. But she finds herself conflicted between family and career.
[More Information & Tickets]

Panel Storytelling Beyond Stereotypes

Section: Future German Cinema // Panel
Friday, 30 April, 2021 (4:30 - 6 p.m.)

Moderator:
Lara-Sophie Milagro
Participants
: Raquel Kishori Dukpa (Jünglinge, was involved in "Futur 3" and the series "Druck", producer, writer and casting); Dieu Hao Do (Berlin Asian Film Network), Tyron Ricketts (Panthertainment, actor), Burhan Qurbani (director "Berlin Alexanderplatz").

Following up on this year's LICHTER theme "Change", HessenFilm und Medien invites you to a panel around the topic of stereotypes in film and series.

[More Information]

The Trouble with Being Born

Section: Future German Cinema
Director:
 
Sandra Wollner
Feature Film, D/Ö 2020, OV, 94 Min.

Language: Original with English subtitles

Trailer

Elli is an android, created from the memories of a man, her "father". But then she hears an echo and must follow it into the forest.
[More Information & Tickets]

Das neue Evangelium

Section: Zukunft Deutscher Film
Director: Milo Rau

Feature Film, DE/CH/IT 2020, 107 Min.

Language: Original with English and German subtitles

Trailer

What would Jesus preach in the 21st century? Who would his disciples be? Director Milo Rau returns to the origins of the Gospel in the southern Italian city of Matera and stages it as a passion play of a society marked by injustice and inequality.

[More Information & Tickets]

Panel House of Film Culture

Section: Future German Cinema // Panel
Friday, 30 April, 2021 (starting at 7 p.m.)
This panel discussion will be in German.
Participants: Rüdiger Suchsland (Film critic); Gabu Heindl (architect)

To kick off the festival, LICHTER presents an almost visionary concept for a House of Film Cultures. A house that translates the cultural space of cinema into the future through its diversity of use and architecture. It will be a home for festivals, a venue for film premieres and award ceremonies, a platform for filmmakers, a media education center for children and young people, and a playground for initiatives and projects. Even more: a research laboratory of immersive techniques and narrative media.

[More Information]

Human Factors (Der menschliche Faktor)

Section: Future German Cinema
Director:
Ronny Trocker
Feature Film, DE/IT/DK 2021, 102 Min.

Language: Original version

Trailer

A drama about a family that falls apart after a break-in at their vacation home.
[More Information & Tickets]

Panel Future of Film Culture

Section: Future German Cinema // Panel
Thursday, April 29, 2021 (4:30 - 6 p.m.)
This panel discussion will be in english.

Moderator: Johanna Koljonen
(Participation Design Agency; Nostradamus Report, Göteborg Film Festival)
Guests: Carlo Chatrian (Berlinale, Artistic Director); Martin Hagemann (Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf; Producer zero fiction film; Board of German Film Academy); Sonja Heinen (European Film Promotion, Managing Director); Laura Houlgatte (UNIC – International Union of Cinemas, CEO); Alby James (Producer for film and television, theatre director, screenwriter, script consultant and trainer); Lysann Windisch (NEXT WAVE - DFFB, Head of Programme; MUBI Germany)

As part of the LICHTER Film Festival, a European online exchange panel will discuss issues related to film culture and trends that will provide food for thought.

[More Information]

Regional Feature Films

Borga

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director:
York-Fabian Raabe
Feature Film, D/GHA 2021, 104 Min.

Language: Original with English and German subtitles
Hesse Premiere

Trailer

The film follows a young Ghanaian who wants to make it rich. But the harsh reality stands in his way.
[More Information & Tickets]

König der Raben

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
 
Piotr Lewandowski
Feature Film, D 2020, 105 Min.
Language: Original with English and German subtitles
Hesse Premiere

Head over heels, young survivalist Danko falls in love with a beautiful stranger he doesn't really know anything about.
[More Information & Tickets]


street line

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
 Justin Peach und Lisa Engelbach
Documentary, D 2021, 79 Min.
Language: Original with German subtitles
World Premiere
Trailer

street line is the sequel to the documentary film Little Wolves and shows what has become of the Nepalese street boy from back then.
[More Information & Tickets]

Trübe Wolken

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
 Christian Schäfer
Feature Film D 2021, 104 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles
Hesse Premiere

A quiet loner, Paul prefers to hang out in abandoned buildings, roam through lonely woods, and along sneaky paths.
[More Information & Tickets]

Coup

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
Sven O. Hill
Feature Film, D 2019, 81 Min.

Language: Original with English subtitles
Hesse Premiere

Trailer

A 22-year-old bank employee, family man, rocker, robs his bank of millions through a newly discovered security flaw.
[More Information & Tickets]

Mein Vietnam

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
 Thi Hien Mai und Tim Ellrich
Documentary, D 2020, 70 Min.
Language: Original with English and German subtitles
Hesse Premiere
Trailer

Between virtual Vietnam and real Germany, the documentary accompanies the Vietnamese couple Bay and Tham.
[More Information & Tickets]

Wer wir waren

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
 Marc Bauder
Documentary, D 2021, 115 Min
Language: Original with German subtitles
Trailer

"Wer wir waren" explores the pressing issues and challenges of our time through the footsteps of its six female protagonists.
[More Information & Tickets]



Räuberhände

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
 İlker Çatak
Feature Film, D/TR 2019, 93 Min.
Language: Original version


This film is only available to our jurors and is not available online.

An unlikely friendship threatens to break apart as the search for order and chaos collide.

Eine Handvoll Wasser

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
Jakob Zapf
Feature Film, D 2020, 94 Min.

Language: Original version
Hesse Premiere

Trailer

The morose Konrad (85) pushes everyone away, but little Thurba (12) manages to break through his wall.
[More Information & Tickets]

Son of Cornwall

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
Lawrence Richards
Documentary, UK 2020, 82 Min.
Language: Original with German subtitles
World Premiere
Trailer

Lawrence Richard chronicles the life of his father and internationally successful tenor John Treleaven in this documentary.
[More Information & Tickets]

Tommy B.

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
:
Enrico Corsano
Documentary, D 2020, 65 Min.
Language: Original version
World Premiere
Trailer

In this documentary, Thomas Betzler, born in Darmstadt in 1954, tells of his amazing career in the music industry.
[More Information & Tickets]

Herr Bachmann und seine Klasse

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director
Maria Speth

Documentary, D 2021, 217 Min.

Language: Original version

Trailer

This film is only available to our jurors and is not available online.

The documentary film Herr Bachmann und seine Klasse (Mr. Bachmann and his Class) by Hessian director Maria Speth follows teacher Dieter Bachmann and his 6b class at the Georg Büchner Comprehensive School in Stadtallendorf, Hesse, for more than half a year.

Regional Feature Films (Outside of Competition)

Lichter der Stadt

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director: Malte Wirtz
Feature Film, D 2020, 102 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles
Hessenpremiere
Trailer

Cologne by night: Joscha is on high alert. His neighbor accidentally hands him a bag of medication, for which he is responsible from now on.
[More Information & Tickets]

Winde der Freiheit (Vientos de Libertad)

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director: Mario Morales
Documentary, D/CHL 2020, 70 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles


Their solidarity and fighting spirit connect them directly with those women who have been demonstrating for years in Chile for their equal rights.
[More Information & Tickets]

Youth Unstoppable -The Rise of the Global Youth Climate Movement

Section: Regional Feature Film Program
Director: 
Slater-Jewell Kemker
Documentary, CAN 2020, 88 Min.
Language: Original with German subtitles

Trailer

Youth Unstoppable documents the tireless efforts of young climate activists for a sustainable future.
[More Information & Tickets]

Regional Mid-Length Films

Adler.Werke.Katzbach

Section: Regional Mid-Length Film Program
Director:
Ulrich Meckler
Experimental Film, D 2020, 42 Min.
Language: Original version

The brutality of the Nazi regime is part of Frankfurt's history; in the middle of the Gallus district there was a forced labor factory for the extermination of prisoners.
[More Information & Tickets]

Berlin to Bombay

Section: Regional Mid-Length Film Program
Director:
Marco Hülser und Daniel Popat
Mockumentary, D 2021, 51 Min.
Language: Original with English subtitles

Abu is a Berliner with Indian roots. In the German film industry he only gets foreigner roles, which is why he starts a career in India.
[Mehr Information & Tickets]

Regional Short Films

Regional Shorts I

Go to the short films here

Pizza Party - R: Max Holicki; D 2019, 03:01 Min.
Apparently there are people of the opinion that pineapple has no place on the Pizza party – but the pineapple won’t let that stand!

Piknik - R: Silke Körber; D 2020, 18:05 Min.
A picnic at the Hungarian-Austrian border? Why not? The thirtieth anniversary of the pan-european picnic sends Silke Körber on a quest through a picnic at the Hungarian-Austrian border.

Rollatorenwahn - R: Nicolas Kronauer; D 2020, 16:50 Min
The Ello E-Move 3000S is the walker of your dreams. Sadly, retiree Hedwig cannot afford it. That’s why she devises an evil plan with her friend!

Bruch - R: Geraldine Francis Rodriguez Maldonado, D 2020, 02:02 Min.
Weightless existence or free falling - what will it be, when the ground is ripped out beneath your feet.

Wir und das, was bleibt - R: Christiane Muñoz; D 2020, 15:12 Min.
Three young women talk of their everyday experiences. Three stories that still reflect the everyday of many women around the world. What does it mean to be feminist?

Daruma - R: Nadine Blesing; D 2020, 06:58 Min.
Day in, day out, same old. That is the monotonous life of Uwe. But then a surprise happens that brings back colour into his grey everyday life.

MILK - R: Jennifer Kolbe; D 2020, 04:29 Min.
The processes of the milk, cheese and meat production are portrayed in clearly animated images - the cows, however, get a break.

INNdependence - R: Michael Schwarz; D 2020,16:38 Min.
During the Corona-lockdown in 2020, 29 people were able to escape homelessness in the business hotel INNdependence in Mainz. Three people tell their stories.

Hamsterbacke - R: Jannik Gensler; D 2020, 03:46 Min.
The lonely hamster lives in mountains of food. The stingy animal wants to share with none else. But when the planet is attacked he changes his mind.

Regional Shorts II

Go to the short films here

Nichts - R: Paul Hartmann; D 2019, 02:53 Min.
What does man do day by day in his own four walls? The time passes and yet stands still, the walls fall and form something new.

Ein Mittag in Quarantäne geprägt von Text hermeneutischen Misserfolgen - R: Jos Diegel; D 2021, 14:27 Min.
The director and actors present a fast changing game of text and editing on the screen. But most of the time even they do not fully know what they are saying and why.

Der Hund - R: Emrah Erdogru; D 2021, 03:03 Min.
Imagine coming home at night with a dog waiting in the house corridor. He stares at you with his big eyes and pants relentlessly. You try to enter your apartment.

GRRRL - R: Natascha Zink; D 2020, 14:45 Min.

A group of young women has made it their mission to protect other women when they are out at night and alone. With violence, if necessary.

The heavy lightness of being - R: Sofia Samoylova; D 2020, 13:38 Min.
Ukrainian war region. Sofia Samoylova takes us to another world that only those understand that live in it themselves.

jeijay - R: Maren Wiese, Petra Stipetic; D 2021, 07:45 Min.
When the relationship one has falls apart slowly, rots and you are up to your neck in it, and you still close your eyes before the end.

Flugblatt - R: Janina Lutter; D 2020, 07:27 Min.
In times of social distancing it is important that we do not isolate ourselves and treat our fellow human beings with mindfulness. This way even the smallest efforts can lead to something big. Such as the flyers that Clara sends to Jonas.

Angst vor Berührung - R: Rosa Langer; D 2020, 02:09 Min.
While the world distances itself, the people who live in it yearn for closeness. And are still afraid of affection.

Vicious - R: Lucie Friederike Mueller; D 2019, 02:36 Min.
To lose yourself in your opposite and feel alone at the same time. To be in the same place and, at the same time, miles apart from one another.

Mutter - R: Sebastian Sgodzai; D 2020, 04:49 Min.
A baby and a mother who does not want to be one. What societal expectations can do to a mother.

Der Telefonvoyeur 2.0 - R: Werner Biedermann; D 2020, 08:24 Min.
Many people are trying to reach Werner. Without the viewer ever seeing Werner, a picture is painted of his person through the voicemails we listen to.

International Shorts

International Shorts

Go to the short films here

Les aigles de Carthage (The Eagles of Carthage) 
(R: Adriano Valerio; F/I/TUN 2020, 20 Min.)

The Africa-Cup Final in 2004 is still a remarkable historical memory for Tunisia, which won against Morocco that year. The film follows the traces of a memory that nowadays seems like a mythical place.

Blaké
(R: Vincent Fontano; F 2019, 23:24 Min.) 

A parking lot at night is a place where thoughts, words, and dreams are let loose, and where social rules no longer seem to apply. The winner of our partners from Festival de Contis 2020.

Zombies
(R: Baloji; CD/BE 2019, 15 Min.)

An undefined cinematic object from Kinshasa: an afro- futuristic journey through the parallel world of Kinshasa. An avant-garde music video or experimental criticism of technology? A worth-while experience in any case.

Being My Mom
(R: Jasmine Trinca, I 2020, 12 Min.)

A mother and her daughter, or rather, two human bodies – on a scorching summer day in Rome. A joyful puzzle about roles, expectations, and relationships.

Ertidad (Going south)
(R: Mohammed Alhamoud; SA 2019, 14 min.)
A couple visits their family in the south of Saudi Arabia for the first time. In the tensions that arise, the contradictions of a country in transition shine through.

International Shorts / Changing Mentality

Go to the short films here

Being Sasha
(R: Manuel Gübeli, CH 2020,  37 min.)
Language: Original with English subtitles

Sascha does not identify as a man or as a woman, but as trans-non-binary. A story about what it means to live in a society they didn't expect. A glimpse into a life through which we can question our own categories. Being Sasha was awarded the Basel Film Prize for Best Short Film and the Best Medium Length Film Award at LA CABINA Medium-Length Film Festival in Valencia, Spain.

One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean
(R: Wang Yuyan, F 2020, 11 min.)
The experimental documentary One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean is a visual reflection on the inundation of images in today's information society and is also layered with an exquisite minimal and trance soundtrack. 

God's Daugther Dances
(R: Sungbin Byun; K 2020, 24 min.)

Shin-mi, a dancer and trans, faces the Korean military service exam because she is still read as a man. She accepts the challenge and defies the system with a lot of wit, although she has to go through a lot of psychological suffering. 

Audience Award at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival 2021

5. VR Storytelling Award

The Dawn of Art

Section: VR Storytelling Award
Director
: Pierre Zandrowics; USA 2020, 10 Min.
Watch The Dawn of Art here

The Chauvet caves in Ardéche, France are the location sites of cave paintings 36.000 years old – and therefore the oldest known. The Dawn of Art pulls into this out of time underground museum and makes a liveable experience out of these early testimonies of human experience. What do these old drawings and remains of ritual sites tell us about the nature of the art and its artists, about the relationship between drawing and the scribe?

Pierre Zadrowics (winner of the LICHTER VR Storytelling Award 2018 with „I, Philip“) bringst he cave drawings of our ancestors alive in front of our eyes while the voice of Daisy Ridley (known as Rey from the newest Star Awars-trilogy) tells us their story. An impressive audiovisual journey to the beginnings of art.

MOWB

Section: VR Storytelling Award
Director: Kazuki Yukhara; JPN 2019, 13:45 Min.
Watch MOWB here

In MOWB by Kazuki Yukhara, a mother and child live the unconditional love and connection of a harmonious childhood. The disappearance of the mother forces the child on a journey of personal emancipation, at the end of which a new beginning awaits.

With handdrawn images, Kazuki Yuhara tells a story of change and rebirth. We are mirrored in our descendents and they are in us. This mystical connection is also present in the title MOWB, reading WOMB backwards.

In the Land of the Flabby Schnook

Section: VR Storytelling Award
Director: Francis Gélinas; CAN 2020, 6 Min.
Watch In the Land of the Flabby Schnook here

To get rid of his fear of darkness, a young boy seeks advice from his sister. Both of them meet on an imaginary journey through a magical lanscape in which their fears become living creatures.

In a child-friendly form, In the Land of the Flabby Schnook delights with its imaginative and magnificently drawn and animated landscapes and creatures. Everything is in motion and full of loving details that use and play with the entire 360° space.

Replacements - Penggantian

Section: VR Storytelling Award
Director: Jonathan Hagard; D/JPN/IND 2020, 12 Min.
Watch Replacements - Penggantian here

A fictitious place in real Jakarta, Indonesia. A street, a few houses and stores, a view into the private life of a family. All this stays the same as we lazily move through time. Beginning in the 1980’s, we are witness to changes. Some are as subtle and random as changing billboards and clothing styles, others massive and brachial as high rises changing the city, floods caused by global warming and social and religious upheavals and revolutions.

Replacements is a film about change. It uses the medium VR to turn us into time travellers and witnesses to change, makes us feels a connection to a place and its inhabitants and develops a pull through its colourful and detailed animations, pulling the viewer into a truly new place.

Hominidae

Section: VR Storytelling Award
Director: Brian Andrews; USA 2019, 7 Min.
Watch Hominidae here

In Hominidae we enter a world full of bizarre mixed-beings. Birds, mammals, insectd, all are curiously mixed with the anatomy of the human body. A hybrid of man and spider is at the centre of the tale, we experience the birth of descendants and their first steps in this strange world. And we develop empathy for those odd creatures that mirror our own humanity despite their grotesque form.

The unusual concept is strengethened by its visual design. The film shows its world and inhabitants as if seen through an X-Ray machine. Everything is transparent, skeletons and organs visible while the surfaces of things are only hinted at. The result is a unique look that makes the amalgamation of man and animal even more obvious and the resulting creatures and their strange ecosystem more fascinating.

11. LICHTER Art Award

Sexual Healers TV

Go to the film here

Section: LICHTER Art Award
Director: Will Fredo; Installation D/PT 2020, 67 Min.

Sexual Healers TV was founded by Will Fredo as a platform to explore and engage with the dynamics of the sex industry and its transactions and effects on the individuals involved in it. As a researcher, he questions the system that creates and enables this apparatus, which is both supported by and marginalized by society. In his own words, "SHTV is a "pro-heaux*" art platform that deals with biopolitics and sex work. Through his research on the sex industry in America and interviews and performances with two sex healers, the semi-fictional video installation addresses an intersection of issues including the subjectivities and rights of sex workers, technology as a tool to democratize pleasure, Black trans body politics, decolonization of the art industry.

Will Fredo
is a non-binary artist, writer, and editor who explores power dynamics, cultural dislocation, and the intersections of pop culture. Born in Portugal of Guatemalan and Cape Verdean descent, Will now lives in Berlin, Germany. Since 2017 he has been the deputy editor of Contemporary And, an art platform focused on African perspectives.

*pro-heaux: Derived from the more colloquial pro-hoe. (Spelling changed to reflect difference and refinement). Black or brown women's rights activists - women and femme, cis or trans - who are pro-sex and/or sex workers and support sex workers' rights.

Little Women 2

Go to the film here

Section: LICHTER Art Award
Director:
 Tara Knuutila; CND 2020, 13:59 Min.

Tara Knuutila's Little Women 2 is a dive into female adolescent sexuality as it is awkwardly forced through the contraption of male sexuality and spat out in the form of intergender violence, facilitated by the claustrophobic institutional structures that induce traumatic identity formation. Inspired by news stories of seemingly "normal" teenage girls who committed murder, the work focuses on the realm of emotion in which these sagas unfolded, realms which we have all inhabited at one time or another but due to a difference in circumstance, the situation did not escalate in the same way. The film makes this difference seem to constitute a very fine line between us and them, which it all but completely dissolves.

Tara Knuutila is a mixed media video artist based in Montreal, Quebec, having majored in studio art and art history at Concordia University. Her practice focuses on the hormonally charged link between sex and violence. Her philosophy is that contrary to Post-Modern belief, the gap between intention and effect is not empty, but contains the essence of the human experience.

Motor

Go to the film here

Section: LICHTER Art Award
Director:
 Frankfurter Hauptschule, D 2020, 23:09 Min.

MOTOR a fake-news-video piece by the art collective Frankfurter Hauptschule from December 2020 claims the death of art – once again The languages German, English, French and Italian alternate, always with complementary but increasingly unreliable subtitles. In the form of an essay film inspired by Chris Marker's handwriting, the two most important German playwrights of the twentieth century are first discussed: Bertolt Brecht's drama "The Measure" premiered in 1930, followed 46 years later by the premiere of Heiner Müller's replica "Mauser." At a similar temporal distance, the art collective Frankfurter Hauptschule now reacts to the two didactic plays: Measure - Mauser - Motor. Using the instruments developed by Brecht and Müller, the question is explored as to where we actually stand right now: Modernity, Postmodernity, Acceleration, Knowledge Society, Fake News, Contemporary Art, Jungle Camp, Climate Catastrophe, Corona, The End?

Frankfurter Hauptschule
is a collective that has been stress-testing public and media space since 2013 to explore the pain thresholds and limits of art. With their interventions, the various artists, who met at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, put social resilience and legal responsibilities to the test. Current exhibitions and performances at the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt; NGBK, neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin; Schlingensief Spectacle, Theater Oberhausen/Museum and Cultural Center Iringa Boma, Tanzania, Altes Zollamt, Hamburg.

video about

Go to the film here

Section: LICHTER Art Award
Director:
 Dudu Quintanilha; D 2020, 43 Min.

video about explores the possibility of using the body and its performance among people as a language. More than ever, we are constantly questioned in different situations. In "video about" Quintanilha uses the institutions and their spaces to activate a performative situation. Using a questionnaire and the answers No, Yes and Maybe, he choreographs images to evoke a social behavioral phenomenon.

Dudu Quintanilha is an Argentine-Brazilian artist. He graduated from IUNA in Buenos Aires and studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. In 2015, Quintanilha founded the group Mexa together with Anita Silvia in São Paulo. The collective is permanently in flux, working on themes of vulnerability, diversity and tolerance, mainly with the help of performance and text. In the same place, with Luisa Cavanagh, he also created Eterno Work in Progress, a cinema club. Quintanilha has exhibited at the Centre Pompidou Canal, Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Museum of Modern Arts Buenos Aires, Kunstraum Niederösterreich, and galleries in Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City.

Anos de noite / Years of nights

Go to the film here

Section: LICHTER Art Award
Director:
 Julia Kater and Guilherme Peres; BRA 2020, 3:48 Min.

Anos de noite / Years of nights by Julia Kater and Guilherme Peres is a film work shot on 35mm and produced as a video. The work is enigmatic and hermetic like its formal aspects but still relates to our Zeitgeist. This dream or nightmare situation explores the attempt to decimate creatures that ultimately prove unreachable. All that is done while reciting a text from the play "Amédée, or how to get rid of it" by Eugène Ionesco, which deals with the effort to eliminate a long-neglected problem that is currently taking up all available space.

Julia Kater
holds a bachelor’s in Pedagogy PUC/SP and Graduate Studies in Psychomotricity at ISPEGAE, OIPR Paris/France. Kater's artistic practice "is guided in the elaboration of a work that can be about its visual improbability." Recent exhibitions and festivals: Mutatio, Garage Amelot, Paris, France; Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Curitiba, SIM Galeria, São Paulo; Anthology Film Archives, New York; Palazzo Rossini, Venice; Ragusa Foto Festival, Italy; 13 edition Experiments in Cinema Festival, Alburquerque, USA; Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin. Guilherme Peres is a video artist and editor. In the last five years he has developed short films that have been shown in art exhibitions and international film festivals. Previous collaborations with Julia Kater include "Pitch Black," "Inertia" and "That Which Watches Us." Both live in São Paulo, Brazil.

>