Author: fsk

A Film by Clair Denis. In french with ger­man sub­tit­les.

This dra­ma (if that is the cor­rect word) fea­tures Isabelle, a divorced artist in paris. She is now sin­gle, lives alo­ne, and unable to deci­de if sear­ching for the One is an urgent prio­ri­ty or a fatui­ty which is pre­ven­ting her from enjoy­ing life and expe­ri­en­cing plea­su­re. She has lovers and the­se liai­sons are dan­ge­rous in that they don’t seem to pro­vi­de the satis­fac­tion they ought.
All the romance, the ero­ti­cism, the exqui­si­te dis­sa­tis­fac­tion of not kno­wing how or whe­ther to be in love, is all disper­sed into tal­king and deba­te and the intellec­tu­al inter­play of ide­as. Of cour­se that may sound like an un-sexy ordeal and very French. And in bla­ckest of black comic sen­ses that is pre­cis­e­ly what it is. The talk’s comic con­tent is most­ly wit­hout the easy laughs and obvious comic beats of, say, Woody Allen or Noah Baumbach. But the­re are big, genui­ne laughs here, too: chief­ly when Isabelle explo­des with rage at an artists’ rustic retre­at when one of her con­tem­po­r­a­ri­es gives vent to an insuf­fera­ble dis­cour­se on his rela­ti­onship to the coun­try­si­de. (Peter Bradshaw)

Credits:
OT: Un Beau Soleil Intérieur
Frankreich 2017, 94 Min., frz. OmU
Regie: Claire Denis
Kamera: Agnes Godard
Schnitt: Guy Lecorne
Darsteller: Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois, Philippe Katerine, Paul Blain, Gérard Depardieu, Nicolas Duvauchell

A film by Valeska Grisebach. In ger­man, bul­ga­ri­an and eng­lish with ger­man subtitles.

A group of German con­s­truc­tion workers start a tough job at a remo­te site in the Bulgarian coun­try­si­de. The for­eign land awa­kens the men’s sen­se of adven­ture, but they are also con­fron­ted with their own pre­ju­di­ce and mis­trust due to the lan­guage bar­ri­er and cul­tu­ral dif­fe­ren­ces. The stage is quick­ly set for a show­down when men begin to com­pe­te for reco­gni­ti­on and favor from the local villagers.

Deutschland, Österreich, Bulgarien, 2017, 121 Min., deutsch,bulgarisch,englische OmU

Regie & Buch: Valeska Grisebach

Kamera: Bernhard Keller
Schnitt: Bettina Böhler

Mit Meinhard Neumann, Reinhardt Wetrek, Syuleyman Alilov Letifov, Veneta Frangipova, Viara Borisova

 A film by Mariko Minoguchi. In German with English subtitles.

[Credits] [Termine] [Trailer]

For Nora and Aron it is love at first sight when they encoun­ter each other on a rai­ny day whilst taking the under­ground. It was a com­ple­te coin­ci­dence, Nora says. Aron dis­agrees: it was pre­de­ter­mi­ned. But the young cou­ple then get caught up in a vio­lent bank rob­be­ry. Aron is shot by the mas­ked gun­man and dies in Nora’s arms. For Nora, time stands still. She numbs her pain, spen­ding the night with a stran­ger – Natan. He pro­vi­des Nora with sta­bi­li­ty. She has the stran­ge fee­ling that she knows him alre­a­dy, but does not yet know what real­ly con­nects them…

Credits:

DE 2019, 111 mins, Original ver­si­on with German sub­tit­les
Director: Mariko Minoguchi
Cinematography: Julian Krubasik
Editing: Andreas Menn,
star­ring: Saskia Rosendahl, Julius Feldmeier, Edin Hasanovic, Jeanette Hain, Lilly Forgach

Trailer:

a film by Ulrike Franke und Michael Loeken. In English and German with German and English subtitles. 

[Credits] [Ticketss & Termine [Trailer]

A look at two cities loca­ted far apart – Bochum and Detroit – whe­re the depar­tu­re of the auto­mo­bi­le indus­try has left behind enorm­ous chal­lenges. The indus­try dis­ap­pears, and what remains are the peo­p­le. Ultimately, it is a jour­ney into the hearts of each city’s inha­bi­tants, who are in search of a new iden­ti­ty fol­lo­wing the end of the indus­tri­al age. Despite all their dif­fe­ren­ces, what unites them is the desi­re for a digni­fied and hap­py life.

Credits:

DE 2021, 118 Min., deutsch, eng­li­sche OmU
Regie: Ulrike Franke, Michael Loeken
Kamera: Uwe Schäfer, Philip Hallay, Fabrizio Costantini, Michael Loeken, Michael Chauvistré, Jörg Adams
Schnitt: Guido Krajewski, Bert Schmidt

Trailer:

A film by Visar Morina.

[Credits] [Tickets & Termine] [Trailer]

First, there’s a dead rat han­ging on the door of the house whe­re Xhafer lives with his wife and child­ren. Then the emails he sends are ‘acci­den­tal­ly’ no lon­ger being recei­ved. The signs that this phar­maceu­ti­cal engi­neer is being bul­lied and haras­sed in his work­place are incre­asing. Even if neither his wife nor his col­le­agues seem to belie­ve him, this man, who is ori­gi­nal­ly from Kosovo but who has been well inte­gra­ted for years, feels more and more out­cast from his (German) com­mu­ni­ty. Or is he losing touch with reality?
In his second fea­ture-length film, direc­tor Visar Morina dis­sects the psy­cho­lo­gi­cal effects of social exclu­si­on and pres­ents them here as an inter­play bet­ween belon­ging and ali­en­ati­on. Morina com­bi­nes subt­le images that gra­du­al­ly shift accor­ding to his protagonist’s sta­te with meti­cu­lous per­for­man­ces from his ensem­ble, to descri­be the importance of per­so­na­li­ty when it comes to inte­gra­ting into ano­ther socie­ty, and how quick­ly cracks can deve­lop in the sup­po­sedly firm con­s­truct that is identity.

Credits:

Germany / Belgium / Kosovo 2020, 121 mins, German, with Albanian sub­tit­les
Directed by: Visar Morina
Cinematography: Matteo Cocco
Editing: Laura Lauzemis, Hansjörg Weißbrich, Visar Morina
Starring: Mišel Matičević, Sandra Hüller, Rainer Bock, Thomas Mraz

Termine:

• noch kei­ne oder kei­ne mehr 

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Trailer:

Kosovo, in the 1990s: Gezim sells ciga­ret­tes on the street and tri­es to scra­pe by as best he can, with his ten-year-old son Nori hel­ping him. But Gezim doesn’t want to car­ry on like this; he wants to get out of Kosovo – wit­hout his son, who would only be an extra bur­den on the jour­ney to Germany. Nori, howe­ver, does not want to be left behind; the boy stub­born­ly sticks clo­se to his father. Nori is inju­red in an acci­dent; his father takes him to hos­pi­tal but lea­ves him the­re alo­ne. Nori is dis­ap­poin­ted and angry with his father and so secret­ly takes what he needs to be able to tra­vel after him. Together with other refu­gees, Nori cros­ses the Adriatic Sea in a rub­ber ding­hy and final­ly reu­ni­tes with his father in Germany, who is now wai­ting for his future at a recep­ti­on cent­re for asyl­um see­kers. Nori can now final­ly con­front his father about what he has done.

“In Kosovo in the 1990s, the­re was a social cli­ma­te that I find hard to put into words. What was asto­nis­hing was not so much the pre-war atmo­sphe­re its­elf – which was accom­pa­nied by house sear­ches, arbi­tra­ry shoo­tings, cur­fews and extre­me pover­ty – but rather the way peo­p­le dealt with all tho­se events. The fee­ling among­st Kosovars that things were not going well for their Kosovo was ever-pre­sent … However, the film’s sub­ject is not the poli­ti­cal cli­ma­te. That atmo­sphe­re is the under­ly­ing mood that car­ri­es the film and the frame­work within which my sto­ry beg­ins. The film its­elf tells a very per­so­nal and high­ly sub­jec­ti­ve father-son sto­ry set against a back­drop of exter­nal con­trol. As the con­text is far too com­plex for a poli­ti­cal dis­cour­se, I focu­sed on my per­so­nal expe­ri­ence whilst wri­ting. There are hard­ly any sce­nes in the film that I haven’t expe­ri­en­ced mys­elf or wit­nessed in my imme­dia­te sur­roun­dings.” From a com­men­ta­ry by direc­tor Visar Morina

“Babai” has won num­e­rous awards (sel­ec­tion): Munich Film Festival: Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actors; Karlovy Vary Film Festival: Best Director; Tirana Film Festival: Best Film; Cottbus Film Festival: Best Debut …

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Germany, Kosovo, Macedonia, France 2015,
104 mins, Albanian, German, Serbian (ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with sub­tit­les)
Written and direc­ted by: Visar Morina
Cinematography: Matteo Cocco
Editing: Stefan Stabenow, Anne Fabini, Maja Tennstedt