Germany

New sci-fi experimentation quite comical about a power failure during the launch of a Soviet rocket.Read More »

Pachamama is another fine example of Peter Nestler’s extraordinary documentaries. He takes us on an expedition to Ecuador, to the heart of an ancient Indian culture. Although heavily damaged by the Spanish conquerors, many of the old treasures and, more remarkably, many of the old traditions and customs have survived and are still in practice today. It’s a film of quiet beauty and sadness, but of a sadness that is friendly and not bitter; a film about the cultural wealth of a fascinating country. (Ted Roth, -viennale.at)Read More »

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Let’s follow the lady announcer and listen to some stories: the one about Max the waiter and the black lady or the one about Nina Petrovna, or others about soldier lost at Stalingrad, about the sick woman, or the European military conventions and Helmut Schmidt’s visit to Erich Honecker.Read More »

The installation THE SILVER AND THE CROSS by media artist Harun Farocki examines the 1758 painting “Depiction of the Cerro Rico and the Imperial City of Potosí” by Gaspar Miguel des Berrío (in the Museo Colonial Charcas de la Universidad San Francisco Xavier, Sucre, Bolivia). Farocki uses the medium of video to dissect the painting and its historical layers. In addition to artistic aspects, Farocki also looks at historical context and colonialism.Read More »

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The geologist Lance Hackett is employed by an Australian mining company to map the subsoil of a desert area covered with ant hills prior to a possible uranium extraction. His work is impeded by some aborigines who explain that this is the place where the green ants dream. Disturbing their dreaming will destroy humanity they claim. Hackett informs the company which offers various “solutions” such as a large amount of money or a percentage of a possible revenue. Invited on a trip to a city some of the aborigines sees a military aeroplane and express the wish to own it. The company buys it and gives it to the aborigines as a sign of good will. A runway is made in the desert and the plane is flown to the location. All negotiations concerning the area fail and the dispute goes to a court of the Commonwealth. Parties and experts are heard, obstacles are met such as an aborigine who is the sole survivor of his tribe (and language) and therefore no-one understands what he is saying.Read More »

Nina and Ben have been together for many years. They have a three-year-old daughter. Their first vacation without their child leads them to the south: to Formentera. Caressed by the sun and the warm Mediterranean winds they enjoy their freedom from the necessities of everyday life. Finally they have some time on their own. But during a wild beach party the paradise turns into hell: Ben is firting with the young and beautiful Mara and at the end of the night Mara und Nina dive into the dark sea. Nina is drifted away and only just manages to get back on land on a different island. Mara, however, has gone missing… Nina and Ben are caught in a deep crisis, questioning everything they once believed in. The sunny island turns into a darkroom, rendering visible what has been concealed: doubts concerning the plans they had for their lives and a quiet grief over a reality that may only be accepted.Read More »

Filipa César turns her gaze to Guinea-Bissau, where at the beginning of the 1970s the advocates of a militant cinema captured the freedom struggle and the first years of independence.

The BFI London Film Festival is in full swing and we couldn’t be happier to bring you, direct from its daring Experimenta section, Portuguese artist Felipa César’s debut feature—a fascinating palimpsest of past and present that reflects on the power of images nodding to Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil.Read More »

Der namenlose Tag is Volker Schlöndorff’s first-ever TV crime drama…

Ludwig Winter visits retired crime investigator Jakob Franck and refers to the death of his 17-year-old daughter, Esther, a death filed as a suicide. Winter is convinced that it was murder and asks Franck to reopen the case. In flashbacks we learn that Esther was found hanging from a tree in a park. Forced to bring the bad news to Natalie’s mother, Franck ended up consoling her for the next seven hours. Later, this mother, unable to live with such a tragedy, commits suicide. Several characters bring the plot forward: Sandra (best girlfriend), Jan (boyfriend), Jordan (small boy), Rosie (older lady). Franck habitually solves cases by lying on his comfortable bed and staring at the ceiling until an idea pops into his head.Read More »

Rushing Green with Horses is a collection of brief moments, filmed between 1999 and 2018 on journeys, at home, with friends and alone. Private gestures attract my attention, spontaneously filmed beyond narration or documentary: Anton in his apartment, Lilian and Nanouk 10 days old, Jón’s 94th birthday, Sofia dancing, snow at Cape Cod, Detel in her atelier, Franz and Sabrina get married, a trip to Detroit, a stormy sea in black-and-white. We see the same people at various ages, as a child, as a teenager, as a young woman… sometimes hear someone speaking, hear music, or silence. Somewhere in the middle of the film there is a handwritten sentence: “A child asleep in its own life”. (Ute Aurand)Read More »