A film by Jochen Hick. Starts 29.6. at the fsk.

In West Berlin in the 1960s it was pos­si­ble to find bars whe­re men could be left to them­sel­ves – a fact that was to turn the city into a magnet for young gay men. The prot­ago­nists of this film, all still acti­ve mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty today, recall tho­se ear­ly years in the city. Theirs are memo­ries of a com­mu­ni­ty that fought ste­adi­ly for its exis­tence, and of its chan­ge, right up to the fall of the Wall. Faced with con­sidera­ble social repres­si­on in the 1970s, a coll­ec­ti­ve gay iden­ti­ty began to emer­ge, and the ‘West Berlin homo­se­xu­al cam­paign’ cal­led for the aboli­ti­on of para­graph 175 and the over­throw of patri­ar­chy. Ruined buil­dings beco­me the venues for new ways of living tog­e­ther such as all-male com­mu­nes or the ‘que­er house’. Cottaging, East-West affairs, lea­ther bars, drag per­for­man­ces in the sub­way – an anar­chic kind of joy out­shi­nes past suf­fe­ring. A deca­de later, AIDS was to hit Berlin. After Out in Ost-Berlin (Out In East Berlin) Jochen Hick explo­res que­er life­styl­es in the West of the city and the roots of a fasci­na­ti­on that the metro­po­lis still holds as a refu­ge – and not just for gay men. A fasci­na­ting jour­ney through time fea­turing pre­vious­ly unpu­blished archi­ve material.

A film by Albert Serra.  In french with ger­man subtitles.

A king lea­ves this world, slow­ly but ine­vi­ta­b­ly. A few more jokes about a naked madam, attempts to con­ti­nue his offi­ci­al duties while a group of doc­tors whis­pe­ring by the edge of the bed. A repre­sen­ta­tio­nal dra­ma of an era, distil­led into an exu­berant inti­ma­te play.

La Mort de Louis XIV
F 2016, 115 Min., franz. OmU
Regie: Albert Serra
Buch:Albert Serra, Thierry Lounas
Kamera: Jonathan Ricquebourg,Julien Hogert, Artur Tort
Schnitt: Ariadne Ribas, Artur Tort,Albert Serra
mit Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick d’Assumçao, Marc Susini

A film by Mike Mills. In eng­lish with ger­man subtitles.

Mike Mills 20TH CENTURY WOMEN is a warm-hear­ted trip to late 70s sun­ny California. The film has a whiff of wistful­ness , per­haps becau­se Mills made the film as a homage to the bel­oved, uncon­ven­tio­nal women in his life, or may­be becau­se the 70s was a time when peo­p­le real­ly attempt­ed to crea­te indi­vi­du­al life plans. The lumi­nous cen­ter of the film is Annette Bening, who plays sin­gle mom Dorothea Fields with a lot of charm and ver­ve. Growing up in the 30s, Dorothea had her son late, when she was over 40, and she cares for him in a libe­ral way. In flash­backs we see the crea­ti­ve excu­se let­ters that she wri­tes for her son Jamie for school. She lives with Jamie, play­ed by Lucas Jade Zumann as a very lova­ble and someone intro­ver­ted teen­ager, and her ten­ant Abbie, a depres­sed punk pho­to­grapher play­ed by Greta Gerwig, in a shab­by gem of a house. Other qua­si room­ma­tes are car­pen­ter William (Billy Crudup), a sexy hip­pie who helps with the reno­vat­ing, and neigh­bor girl Julie (Elle Fanning), Jamie’s best fri­end – a sta­tus that’s hard for Jamie to swallow.

In the begin­ning of the film Dorothea deci­des that Jamie needs other attach­ment figu­res along with her so he can suc­cessful­ly go through puber­ty and asks Abbie for help. She takes the boy to con­certs and gives him femi­nist books. 20TH CENTURY WOMEN shows the coll­ec­ti­ve attempt to mas­ter Jamie’s puber­ty in a time of poli­ti­cal uphe­aval in a fun­ny, nost­al­gic, and lova­ble way. Mills has a good a grasp on the various gene­ra­ti­ons as well as on the slight­ly over­whel­med 20th cen­tu­ry boy in the midd­le.   (Hendrike Bake)

20th Century Women
USA 2016, 118 Min.
Regie: Mike Mills
Drehbuch: Mike Mills
Kamera: Sean Porter
Musik: Roger Neill
Darsteller: Billy Crudup, Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig

A film by Philippe Van Leeuw. In ara­bic with ger­man subtitles.

Energetic Oum Yazan is try­ing despera­te­ly to keep tog­e­ther her fami­ly life whilst out­side a war is raging. The fami­ly sits tog­e­ther around a lar­ge table at mid­day, ever­yo­ne try­ing to make them­sel­ves heard abo­ve the can­no­na­de of bombs and machi­ne gun fire. There is hard­ly any water and every trip out­side the door spells dan­ger on account of the sni­pers on the roof­tops abo­ve. While Grandfather plays with his litt­le grand­child, the oldest daugh­ter flirts with her boy­fri­end in her room. Next door a young cou­ple with a baby are plan­ning their escape. Up abo­ve, threa­tening noi­ses can be heard. Who’s that kno­cking at the door? Could it be Oum Yazan’s hus­band who­se return she has been anxious­ly awai­ting, or are the­re stran­ge men out­side, loo­king for valu­ables? Just a few shots are neces­sa­ry to draw the view­er into the per­ma­nent sta­te of emer­gen­cy that is war. The apart­ment that was once a fami­li­ar home has now beco­me a pri­son. Philippe Van Leeuw’s huis clos descri­bes peo­p­le in an extre­me situa­ti­on that gives rise to extre­me beha­viour. Every decis­i­on could be a mat­ter of life or death: is it moral­ly accep­ta­ble to sacri­fice one mem­ber of the fami­ly to gua­ran­tee the sur­vi­val of the others?

Insyriated
Belgien, 2017, 85 Min., arab. OmU
Regie & Buch: Philippe Van Leeuw
Kamera: Virginie Surdej
Schnitt: Gladys Joujou
Mit Hiam Abbass, Diamand Bou Abboud, Juliette Navis

A film by Hannes Obens & Claudia Morar.

A docu­men­ta­ti­on about some „under­co­ver agents” in acti­vists groups around the „Rote Flora” cul­tu­ral centre.

D 2017, 83 Min.
Regie: Hannes Obens und Claudia Morar
Kamera: Maurice Wilkerling, Lasse Teubner
Ton: Timo Selengia
Schnitt: Michelle Barbin

IM INNEREN KREIS Offizieller Trailer from dirk man­they film ug on Vimeo.

A film by Julian Radlmaier. In ger­man & eng­lish with ger­man subtitles

A bour­geois grey­hound con­fes­ses how he tur­ned from an ambi­tious but litt­le-reco­g­nis­ed film­ma­ker into a cani­ne. When his latest pro­ject is rejec­ted by every sin­gle fun­ding insti­tu­ti­on, Julian is forced to take on a job as a fruit picker. When he makes a young Canadian woman named Camille belie­ve that this is rese­arch for a com­mu­nist fairy­ta­le film in which she is to play the lea­ding role, she wants to come along, which kind­les roman­tic noti­ons in Julian. The pair winds up on an osten­si­bly idyl­lic but in rea­li­ty deep­ly explo­ita­ti­ve apple farm. Whilst Julian has a hard time coping with the phy­si­cal strain, Camille throws hers­elf enthu­si­a­sti­cal­ly into their sup­po­sed rese­arch and befri­ends Hong and Sancho, two naï­ve pro­le­ta­ri­ans in search of hap­pi­ness. Julian finds it incre­asing­ly dif­fi­cult to play the com­mu­nist film­ma­ker, then a model worker who dreams the American dream gets in his way, not to men­ti­on an unhin­ged monk with magi­cal powers. With all the­se seething con­flicts going on it’s no sur­pri­se that the farm owner is acci­den­tal­ly kil­led. In the end the enti­re orchard is buz­zing with an outra­ge­ous plan.

Deutschland 2017,  99 Min.
Regie, Buch, Schnitt: Julian Radlmaier
Kamera: Markus Koob
Mit:
Julian Radlmaier
Deragh Campbell
Kyung-Taek Lie
Beniamin Forti
Ilia Korkashvili
Bruno Derksen

A film by Thomas Riedelsheimer. Starts 1. Juni at the fsk in seve­ral lan­guages with ger­man subtitles.

What is the mea­ning of home? What is the mea­ning of hap­pi­ness? And how do you find it – just whe­re you are? With his depen­da­ble flair for came­ra posi­ti­ons and peo­p­le, Riedelsheimer tra­vels to six dif­fe­rent desti­na­ti­ons to find out exact­ly that.

Deutschland 2016, 92 Min., por­tu­gie­sisch, japa­nisch, deutsch, ara­bi­sche OmU
Regie, Kamera, Schnitt: Thomas Riedelsheimer

Die 20-jäh­ri­ge Jane arbei­tet im San Fernando Valley als Porno-Darstellerin. Mit ihrer Kollegin Melissa lebt sie in einem Haus, das Melissas Freund und Manager Mikey gehört und oft auch als Filmset dient. Um ihr kar­ges Zimmer ein biss­chen gemüt­li­cher zu machen, klap­pert Jane die umlie­gen­den Flohmärkte ab. In einer Thermoskanne, die sie als Vase benut­zen will, fin­det sie 10.000 Dollar. Spontan geht sie ein­kau­fen – dann pla­gen sie Gewissensbisse. Doch die ahnungs­lo­se Verkäuferin Sadie (Besedka Johnson), eine ver­schlos­se­ne Witwe von 85 Jahren, lässt Jane gar nicht erst zu Wort kom­men, als die von ihrem Fund erzäh­len will. Jane will nun her­aus­fin­den, ob Sadie das vie­le Geld nötig hat, und es ihr nur dann zurück­ge­ben. Frech drängt sie sich ins Leben der alten Frau, um sie ken­nen zu ler­nen, bis sich lang­sam eine unge­wöhn­li­che Freundschaft ent­wi­ckelt. Doch auch Melissa benö­tigt immer wie­der Janes Aufmerksamkeit: Sie ist dro­gen­süch­tig, und ihre Unzuverlässigkeit und ihr chro­ni­scher Geldmangel wer­den zum Problem …
„Starlet” ist ein Film über Vertrauen und Vertrauensmissbrauch. Sadie und Jane sind bei­de auf sich allein gestellt und leben wie in einem Kokon: Sadie ver­lässt ihr leicht ver­wahr­los­tes Haus fast nur noch zum wöchent­li­chen Bingo, Jane lebt in einer asep­ti­schen Welt, in der es außer dem Job kaum mehr gibt als Computerspielen auf der Couch und Drogen. Die Bildgestaltung des Films ist äußerst gelun­gen. Oft scheint Jane sich in einer licht­durch­flu­te­ten Traumwelt zu bewe­gen. Der ele­gi­sche Elektrosoundtrack trägt eben­falls zu die­ser ent­rück­ten Atmosphäre bei. Dann wie­der­um setzt der Film auf die doku­men­ta­risch anmu­ten­de Nähe der Handkamera und strafft Szenen mit sicht­ba­ren Jumpcuts. (…). Ein wun­der­ba­rer Film. (BR – KinoKino)

„STARLET ent­wirft die klas­si­sche Geschichte der unwahr­schein­li­chen Freundschaft als zar­tes, pas­tell­far­be­nes, son­nen­ge­tränk­tes, flüch­tig-spon­ta­nes Gewebe und war­tet mit zwei Entdeckungen auf: Mariel Hemingways Tochter Dree in der Rolle der Jane und Besedka Johnson, die im Greisinnenalter ihr Debüt als Sadie gibt.” (Viennale)

USA 2012, 103 Min., engl. OmU 

Regie:  Sean S. Baker

Darsteller:  Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson, Stella Maeve, James Ransone, Karren Karagulian

A film by Bertram Verhaag.In ger­man language.

The film opens with far­mers in the USA. Here, every year, the fields are spray­ed with mil­li­ons of ton­nes of “Roundup”, a pesti­ci­de who­se main acti­ve ingre­di­ent is the che­mi­cal gly­pho­sa­te. Multinational che­mi­cal com­pa­nies mar­ket Roundup for use with plants which are gene­ti­cal­ly modi­fied to be resistant to it. The idea is that far­mers can app­ly the poi­son to lar­ge swa­thes of farm­land, kil­ling ever­y­thing except their crop. But this wea­pon is losing its power. Nature is crea­ting gly­pho­sa­te-resistant weeds which spread at a bibli­cal rate and grow incre­di­bly fast – allo­wing them to quick­ly over­power and kill the crops. We meet far­mers who’ve been dri­ven to despe­ra­ti­on. No lon­ger able to con­trol the­se “super­weeds”, they have no choice but to aban­don huge are­as of good-qua­li­ty farm­land – losing their liveli­hoods in the process.

The film explo­res poi­sons such as Roundup and the ways in which they have see­ped into our lives: alt­hough Germany is vir­tual­ly GM-free, gly­pho­sa­te can now be detec­ted in all of our bodies. Using powerful images, the film explains how the lar­ge-sca­le appli­ca­ti­on of poi­son is des­troy­ing soil bio­lo­gy, caus­ing a glo­bal drop in soil fertility.

Deutschland 2017, 95 Min.
Regie: Bertram Verhaag
Kamera: Waldemar Hauschild, Gerald Fritzen
Schnitt: Hauke von Stietencron, Corinna Lösel, Melanie Singer, Verena Schönauer

A film by Ounie Lecomte, In french with ger­man subtitles.

Elisa, phy­sio­the­ra­pist, went to live with her young son, Noé, in Dunkirk, the town whe­re she was born under X. A few months ear­lier, she began rese­ar­ching her bio­lo­gi­cal mother, but the woman refu­sed to reve­al her iden­ti­ty. In search of an unknown mother, her past and their histo­ry, Elisa did not give up and wants to under­stand as luck will chan­ge their expectations …

Je vous sou­hai­te d’êt­re fol­le­ment aimée
Frankreich 2015, frz. OmU,  100 Min.
Regie: Ounie Lecomte
Buch: Ounie Lecomte, Agnès de Sacy
Kamera: Caroline Champetier
Darsteller: Céline Sallette, Anne Benoit, Elyes Aguis, Françoise Lebrun, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Pascal Elso, Micha Lescot, Catherine Mouchet