A film by David Evans. n eng­lish with ger­man subtitles.

[Pres­se­zo­ne]

Three men tra­vel through Europe, visi­ting sites of Nazi war cri­mes in Poland and the Ukraine. For two of the three, the jour­ney con­fronts them with the deeds of their fathers. Niklas Frank is the son of Hans Frank, once General Governor of Poland, also known as the „but­cher of Poland”. Horst von Wächter’s father Otto was Governor of Galicia. The man who initia­ted the jour­ney is renow­ned lawy­er Philippe Sands, who lost part of his fami­ly in the Holocaust. During the cour­se of the three men’s encoun­ter with the past, con­flicts emer­ge. While Horst von Wächter defends his father, Hans Frank is fil­led with an almost obses­si­ve hat­red. Two sons, two com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent truths. The film is an extra­or­di­na­ry docu­ment about the lega­cy of mass mur­de­rers and their influence on the descendants.

GB 2015 96 Min., engl. OmU
Regie : David Evans
Drehbuch : Philippe Sands
Kamera : Philipp Blaubach, Matt Gray, Sam Hardy
Schnitt : David Charap
Protagonisten : Philippe Sands, Niklas Frank, Horst von Wächter

A film by Marion Hänsel.  In french with ger­man subtitles.

[Pressezone]

Homer and Joé, two taci­turn men aged around fif­ty, sail a small boat up a river in Croatia. Until recent­ly, neither knew of the other’s exis­tence, but now their father has died it turns out they are half-brot­hers. Looking for traces of the man of who shaped their lives so dif­fer­ent­ly, they encoun­ter a third tra­vel­ler, the mys­te­rious Irishman Sean, and their tour through the wild land­scape of Croatia beco­mes a real psy­cho­lo­gi­cal challenge.

»Certain peo­p­le find it diff­cult to talk about them­sel­ves for many dif­fe­rent reasons. My cha­rac­ters, Homer and Joé, half­brot­hers, are such peo­p­le. Homer, trau­ma­tis­ed by an absent father who igno­red his exis­tence, Joé by the vio­lence of this same father. e lack of words, of ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on inte­rests me and can be found in a num­ber of my lms. e silen­ces, what is left unsaid, lea­ves room for the spectator’s inter­pre­ta­ti­on, their per­so­nal ima­gi­na­ti­on. I like that. As to the nar­ra­ti­on, I have the impres­si­on that I am dig­ging into earth that I alre­a­dy know but that I want to go deeper. If Joé and Homer are half-brot­hers, it is not by chan­ce. In some of my pre­vious Films, blood-ties, filia­ti­on, the image of the father or his absence are stron­gly pre­sent. Upstream is part of this same lineage.« Marion Hänsel

(En amont du fleuve)
Belgien/Niederlande/Kroatien 2016, 90 Min.
Regie: Marion Hänsel
Buch: Marion Hänsel, Hubert Mingarelli
Mit: Olivier Gourmet, Sergi López, John Lynch
Kamera: Didier Frateur
Schnitt: Michèle Hubinon
Produktion: Marion Hänsel, Digna Sinke

Trailer Stromaufwärts from Peripher Filmverleih on Vimeo.

Sorry, this ent­ry is only available in Deutsch.

Zum fünf­ten Mal ver­sam­melt die dok­film­wo­che zwi­schen 31. August und 6. September im fsk Kino und Sputnik aktu­el­le doku­men­ta­ri­sche Arbeiten, die die Welt und ihre Zustände zwi­schen Diesseits und Jenseits ver­mes­sen, in Formen die so unter­schied­lich sind, wie die Bilder, die sie dabei zu Tage fördern.

Mehr auf der dok­film­wo­chen-Webseite

Hier eine ers­te Übersicht:

Von der Geburtsvorbereitung über die rich­ti­gen Umgangsformen bis zur Bestattung zei­gen Jörg Adolph und Ralf Bücheler Versuche in die mehr und weni­ger all­täg­li­chen Verrichtungen des­sen ein­zu­füh­ren, was man am Ende Leben nennt. (LEBEN GEBRAUCHSANLEITUNG).

Drei Bauern und ihre Arbeit beforscht fil­misch Sigmund Steiner, und bringt dar­in auch die Figur des eige­nen abwe­sen­den Vaters zum Erscheinen. (HOLZ, ERDE, FLEISCH)

Drei Söhne zeigt David Evans und por­trä­tiert sie auf weit unter­schied­li­chen Wegen mit einer his­to­ri­schen Last umzu­ge­hen (WHAT OUR FATHERS DID)

Der Schauspieler Eric Caravaca spürt sei­ner mit drei Jahren ver­stor­be­nen gro­ßen Schwester nach und stösst dabei auf fran­zö­si­sche Kolonialgeschichte (CARRE 35).

Einen fer­nen Dialog zwi­schen ihren leib­li­chen Eltern, die sich seit 25 Jahren nicht mehr gese­hen haben insze­niert Carlotta Kittel und schreibt damit ihre eige­nen Geschichte, durch Widerstände (ER SIE ICH)

Eli Roland Sachs hat sei­nen Bruder an einen Gott namens Allah ver­lo­ren, nun sucht er ihn wie­der­zu­fin­den (BRUDER JAKOB)

In Argentinien fin­det Nora Fingscheidt eine men­no­ni­ti­sche Gemeinschaft, die ihren Wunsch eines Lebens fern­ab der Welt und in Gott gegen den unaus­weich­li­chen Wandel ver­tei­di­gen. (OHNE DIESE WELT)

Ganz im Diesseits befragt Merzak Allouache Menschen nach ihren Orientierungen auf etwas, das jen­seits die­ser Welt liegt und ent­deckt dabei eine ganz eige­ne Ökonomie. (INVESTIGATING PARADISE).

Den Weg eines jun­gen Rekruten im argen­ti­ni­schen Militär fängt Manuel Abramovich in ein­dring­li­chen Bildern ein, und erzählt von einem Coming of Age in einer tota­len Institution (SOLDADO)

Nach trot­zi­gen Resten von Leben in dem, was von der einst größ­ten Mangan Mine der Welt hält Rati Oneli aus­schau (CITY OF THE SUN)

In der Gegend um Fukushima berich­tet Thorsten Trimpop vom Verhältnis zwi­schen Bewohner*innen und einer Landschaft zwi­schen tie­fer tra­di­tio­nel­ler Verbundenheit und jüngs­ter Kontamination. (FURUSATO)

Zusammen mit Dorfbewohner*innen aus der Minderheit der Bunong erar­bei­tet Mehdi Sahebi ein Bild des Landraubs in Kambodscha und sei­ner viel­fa­chen Verheerungen. (MIRR)

In tra­di­tio­nel­len ira­ni­schen Häusern ist Hashti ein zen­tra­ler Raum der in die ande­ren Bereiche lei­tet. Daniel Kötter betrach­tet den Stadtrand von Teheran als Zone des Übergangs im Haus der isla­mi­schen Republik. (HASHTI TEHRAN)

Michael Glawogger woll­te einen Film dre­hen, der ein Bild zeich­net, das von kei­nem ande­ren Thema zusam­men­ge­lei­tet wird als der eige­nen Neugier. Nach sei­nem plötz­li­chen Tod hat Monika Willi aus dem ver­blie­ben Material ein fas­zi­nie­ren­des Kaleidoskop mon­tiert. (UNTITLED).

Hier der Trailer:

Dokfilmwoche 2017 – Trailer from Peripher Filmverleih on Vimeo.

A Film by John Trengove.  In Xhosa with ger­man subtitles.

Eastern Cape, South Africa. A lonely fac­to­ry worker, Xolani, takes time off his job to assist during an annu­al Xhosa cir­cumcis­i­on initia­ti­on into man­hood. In a remo­te moun­tain camp that is off limits to women, young men, pain­ted in white och­re, recup­er­a­te as they learn the mas­cu­li­ne codes of their cul­tu­re. In this envi­ron­ment of machis­mo and aggres­si­on, Xolani cares for a defi­ant initia­te from Johannesburg, Kwanda, who quick­ly lear­ns Xolani’s best kept secret, that he is in love with ano­ther man. Having first explo­red male cir­cumcis­i­on in his short film Ibhokhwe, South African direc­tor John Trengove revi­sits this topic and other ritu­als of mas­cu­li­ni­ty in his first fea­ture. The ten­si­on that builds inex­orab­ly throug­hout the film deri­ves on the one hand from the young Kwanda who incre­asing­ly calls into ques­ti­on the patri­ar­chal codes of the initia­ti­on, as well as the unbe­ara­ble cri­sis buil­ding in Xolani as he must choo­se bet­ween the tra­di­tio­nal world that he knows, and his own fulfillment.

Südafrika / Deutschland / Niederlande / Frankreich 2016
Xhosa mit dt. Untertiteln, 88 Min.
Regie: John Trengove
Buch: John Trengove, Thando Mgqolozana, Malusi Bengu
Kamera: Paul Özgür 
Schnitt: Matthew Swanepoel
Mit: Nakhane Touré, Bongile Mantsai, Niza Jay Ncoyini

Die Wunde – Trailer für die offi­zi­el­le Website from Salzgeber & Co. Medien GmbH on Vimeo.

A film by Daan Veldhuizen. S

When back­pa­ckers come to a small vil­la­ge in rural Laos, their arri­val divi­des the local popu­la­ti­on and dis­rupts the rela­ti­onship bet­ween two child­hood fri­ends. A com­plex East-meets-West sto­ry, told in a cine­ma­to­gra­phic lan­guage that is as rich as it is confrontational.

While the advent of tou­rists radi­cal­ly chan­ged the ori­gi­nal rela­ti­ons within a vil­la­ge some­whe­re in the north of Laos, Banana Pancakes and the Children of Sticky Rice is not a film about good against evil. The back­pa­ckers are not basi­cal­ly loo­king to unsett­le the place; this is just a side-effect of their arri­val. And the vil­la­gers do dream of more wealth and luxu­ry. The film does­n’t con­demn, but does tack­le the cul­tu­re clash in crys­tal clear images and scenes.
The lan­guage in which this hap­pens is bey­ond ciné­ma véri­té. Daan Veldhuizen con­s­tructs situa­tions in such a way that they are more expe­ri­en­ces than recor­dings. The uni­que ele­ment of Banana Pancakes is that this also appli­es to the cen­tral the­me of the film. You can feel the unea­se that emer­ges when tou­rists pene­tra­te the vil­la­ge. Undoubtedly with the best of inten­ti­ons, but so reco­g­nisable and embar­ras­sing it gives rise to sur­ro­ga­te shame.

Laos / Niederlande 2015, 85 Min., Lao, Englisch, Französisch, Niederländisch, Hebräisch mit dt. Ut. 
Buch, Kamera & Regie: Daan Veldhuizen
Schnitt: Daan Veldhuizen, Jos Driessen

A film by Sabu. In Mandarin, Japanese, Taiwanese with ger­man subtitles.

„The maverick direc­tor Sabu has made a hit­man fable tha­t’s like Charlie Chaplin meets Takeshi Miike. The weird thing is, it works.“  Variety

Professional hit­man Long takes on an assign­ment in Japan. When things go awry, he has to flee. Badly inju­red, he takes refu­ge in a deser­ted part of a small town. A young boy brings him water and clot­hing. Long installs hims­elf in one of the dila­pi­da­ted hou­ses whe­re he pre­pa­res simp­le meals for the eight-year-old Jun. Jun’s mother Lily is a drug addict and, like Long, comes from Taiwan. The news of Long’s tasty coo­king quick­ly spreads throug­hout the neigh­bour­hood, and Long’s neigh­bours orga­ni­se a mobi­le food stall for him. Soon, peo­p­le are queu­ing up for Long’s nood­le soup. Lily mana­ges to kick her habit with Long’s help and, for a while, it looks as though this could mark the begin­ning of a new life for this com­mu­ni­ty which fate has thrown together.
The search for a way out of a spi­ral of vio­lence, for a quiet life and emo­tio­nal secu­ri­ty are topics that per­va­de Japanese direc­tor Sabu’s oeu­vre. Seamlessly strin­ging tog­e­ther the rug­ged ver­na­cu­lar of gangs­ter films with the ten­der moments of a bur­geo­ning love sto­ry, his new work com­bi­nes per­fect­ly cho­reo­gra­phed out­breaks of vio­lence with con­tem­pla­ti­ve coo­king sce­nes and sur­pri­sing moments of slap­stick comedy.

Japan/Hongkong/ Taiwan/D 2017, 129 Min. Mandarin, Japanisch, Taiwanesisch mit dt. Untertiteln
Regie & Buch: Sabu 
Kamera: Koichi Furuya 
Schnitt: Georg Petzold 
mit:.: Chen Chang, Yiti Yao, Runyin Bai

https://filme.kinofreund.com/file/d/EZR4KK5O18FZS5SV

A film by Emin Alper. In tür­ki­sh with ger­man subtitles.

Istanbul ist nicht wie­der­zu­er­ken­nen. Finster und unwohn­lich, fast apo­ka­lyp­tisch wirkt die Stadt, in die Kadir heim­kommt, als er nach 10 Jahren aus der Haft ent­las­sen wird – und da weiß er noch nicht, wie eng es wer­den wird um ihn. Als Informant soll er als Gegenleistung für sei­ne vor­zei­ti­ge Entlassung im Auftrag der staat­li­chen Terrorismusabwehr Müll auf Sprengsätze durch­wüh­len und die Straßen nach ver­däch­ti­gen Subjekten aus­spä­hen. Doch zunächst sucht er sei­nen jün­ge­ren Bruder Ahmet auf. Ist auch er ein ver­däch­ti­ges Subjekt, oder kann er ihm noch trau­en? Ahmet tötet als Bezirksangestellter streu­nen­de Hunde, ver­steckt aber eines Tages ein ange­schos­se­nes Tier. Eine letz­te mensch­li­che Regung, die ihn zum Ziel der Fahnder macht, und Kedir in eine gefähr­li­che Zwickmühle bringt.

Der Film erscheint wie ein Kommentar zur heu­ti­gen Türkei, wur­de jedoch vor dem Putsch 2016 gedreht. Die Muster von Misstrauen und Verrat im Film sind auch all­ge­mein­gül­tig und nicht rein auf die Türkei zuge­schnit­ten zu lesen. Wer mehr dar­über wis­sen will, kann den Regisseur selbst befra­gen. Am Fr., 8.9.17 ist Emir Alper zu Gast bei uns im Kino.

»Die Türkei, ein Albtraum: Emin Alper, des­sen ers­ter Spielfilm Beyond the Hill 2012 im Forum der Berlinale lief, zeich­net sur­rea­le, Rembrandt-glei­che Tableaux der lau­ern­den poli­ti­schen Gewalt sei­nes Landes, der Einsamkeit und Paranoia, die dar­aus resul­tiert.« Tagesspiegel

Türkei 2015 119 min. türk. OmU, 
Regie & Buch: Emin Alper, 
Kamera: Adam Jandrup, 
Schnitt: Osman Bayraktaroglu, 
mit: Mehmet Özgür, Berkay Ates, Tülin Özen, Müfit Kayacan

A film by Călin Peter Netzer. In roma­ni­an with ger­man subtitles.

Toma and Ana meet at uni­ver­si­ty. A love affair beg­ins that is full of hopes and dreams and suf­fu­sed by the fee­ling that each needs the other in equal mea­su­re. Ana has a com­pli­ca­ted fami­ly back­ground and suf­fers from seve­re panic attacks. Middle-class Toma is as sho­cked as he is fasci­na­ted by the deep well of des­pair he encoun­ters in his bel­oved. Toma gives Ana his com­ple­te sup­port and takes her to see a string of doc­tors. At the same time the two begin to iso­la­te them­sel­ves from their fami­lies and fri­ends. Ana’s weak­ne­ss appears to make Toma stron­ger. When she falls pregnant, Ana embarks on a the­ra­py based on ana­ly­ti­cal psy­cho­ana­ly­sis from which she emer­ges a stron­ger per­son. But then Toma’s world beg­ins to topp­le … Călin Peter Netzer’s film blends roman­tic dra­ma with a stu­dy of men­tal ill­ness and how it is over­co­me. Unfolding like a com­plex puz­zle struc­tu­red around Toma’s psy­cho­ana­ly­ti­cal ses­si­ons, the nar­ra­ti­ve plun­ges into the past in a series of sus­tained flash­backs. Scenes from a com­plex mar­ria­ge that reve­al num­e­rous con­nec­tions to the repres­sed depths and taboos of Romanian society.

Rumänien 2017, 127 Min. , rum. OmU 
Regie: Calin Peter Netzer 
Kamera: Andrei Butică 
Schnitt: Dana Bunescu 
mit: Mircea Postelnicu, Diana Cavallioti, Carmen Tanase, Vasile Muraru

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

We have two WUXIA-Classics by King Hu in our Programm:

DRAGON INN, Tsao, the emper­or’s first eunuch, has suc­cessful­ly bested General Yu, his poli­ti­cal oppo­nent. The gene­ral was behea­ded and his remai­ning child­ren have been exi­led from China. As the child­ren are being escor­ted to the wes­tern bor­der of the Chinese empire, Tsao plots to have the child­ren kil­led. Tsao’s secret poli­ce lie in ambush at the deso­la­te Dragon Gate Inn. Martial arts expert Hsiao shows up at the inn, wan­ting to meet the inn­kee­per. Unknown to the secret poli­ce is that the inn­kee­per, Wu Ning, was one of the gene­ral’s lieu­ten­ants and has sum­mo­ned Hsiao to help the child­ren. A brot­her-sis­ter mar­ti­al-artist team (child­ren of ano­ther Yu lieu­ten­ant) also show up to help. These four race to find Yu’s child­ren and lead them to safety.

A TOUCH OF ZEN,

The sto­ry is lar­ge­ly seen through the eyes of Gu, who is a well-mea­ning but unam­bi­tious scho­lar and pain­ter, with a ten­den­cy towards being clum­sy and inef­fec­tu­al. A stran­ger arri­ves in town wan­ting his por­trait pain­ted by Gu, but his real objec­ti­ve is to bring a fema­le fugi­ti­ve back to the city for exe­cu­ti­on on behalf of the East Chamber guards. The fugi­ti­ve, Yang, is befri­en­ded by Gu and tog­e­ther they plot against the cor­rupt Eunuch Wei who wants to era­di­ca­te all trace of her fami­ly after her father attempts to warn the Emperor of the eunu­ch’s cor­rup­ti­on. His daugh­ter fled, and Abbot Hui inter­ven­ed to pro­tect them.

The stran­ger, Yang and her fri­ends are all supe­ri­or war­ri­ors. The stran­ger has a spe­cial fle­xi­ble sword that bends and that he can wear within his belt, making him seem unarmed.

One of the uni­que aspects of the film is that Gu is a non-com­ba­tant all the way through the film and only beco­mes invol­ved when he sleeps with Yang. Upon doing so, he is no lon­ger the naï­ve bumbling inno­cent, but ins­tead beco­mes con­fi­dent and asser­ti­ve, and when Yang’s plight is reve­a­led, he insists on being part of it – and even comes up with a fien­dish „Ghost Trap” for the East Chamber guards. This is a plan to use a sup­po­sedly haun­ted site to play tricks on the guards to make them belie­ve they are prey to the undead. He first spreads rumours of ghosts, with his mother play­ing a part. The film then brief­ly uses split-screen with six sepa­ra­te views to show the spread of the­se rumours.

In the after­math, Gu walks through the car­na­ge laug­hing at the inge­nui­ty of his plan until the true cost of human life dawns upon him. He sees Abbot Hui and his fol­lo­wers arri­ve to help bury the dead.

After the batt­le, Gu is unable to find Yang, who he is told has left him and does not want him to fol­low her. He tracks her down at the monas­tery of the saint­ly and powerful Abbot Hui Yuan, whe­re she has given birth to a child by Gu and beco­me a nun. She tells Gu that their desti­ny tog­e­ther has ended and gives Gu their child. Later, when Gu and the child are tra­cked down by Hsu Hsien-Chen, the evil com­man­der of Eunuch Wei’s army, Yang and Abbot Hui come to Gu’s res­cue. In the ensuing batt­le, Hsu is kil­led and Yang and Abbot Hui are bad­ly inju­red (the lat­ter blee­ding gol­den blood). The film famously ends with the inju­red Yang stag­ge­ring towards a sil­hou­et­ted figu­re, pre­su­ma­b­ly Abbot Hui, seen medi­ta­ting with the set­ting sun forming a halo around his head, an image sug­gest­ing the Buddha and enlightenment.

DRAGON INN (Die Herberge zum Drachentor | 龍門客棧 / 龙门客栈 Lóngmén Kèzhàn) TW 1967 111 Min. OmU

A TOUCH OF ZEN (Ein Hauch von Zen | 俠女 Hsia Nu) TW 1971 180 Min. OmU

Trailer Dragon Inn

Trailer A Touch of Zen