Category: archiv-en

  • We all are Detroit

    We all are Detroit

    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:
    WE ARE ALL DETROIT – Vom Bleiben und Verschwinden [TRAILER german]
  • Exil

    Exil

    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 

    [nbsp]

    Trailer:

    EXIL I Offizieller Trailer deutsch I Jetzt im Kino
  • Babai

    Babai

    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

  • Bad Apples

    Bad Apples

    A film by Jonatan Etzlerl. In English with German subtitles.

    [Credits] [Tickets & Dates] [Trailer]

    A young tea­cher has to deal with a dif­fi­cult pupil in order not to lose her job. A dark comedy.

    “Whilst the film is not pri­ma­ri­ly about taking on a fla­wed and out­da­ted edu­ca­ti­on sys­tem, but rather about indi­vi­du­al pro­blems, it nevert­hel­ess main­ta­ins a cri­ti­cal eye on social cir­cum­s­tances and inju­s­ti­ces. The children’s fami­ly cir­cum­s­tances are shown rather in pas­sing. From the out­set, the who­le situa­ti­on feels men­acing; only the light, boun­cy music seems to sug­gest: ‘Perhaps it won’t be quite that bad…’ Yet the tone grows incre­asing­ly stark as the plot unfolds – about which we shall reve­al as litt­le as pos­si­ble here. The humour is so bit­ter­ly dark that more than once, laugh­ter gets stuck in your throat.” filmstarts

    Credits:

    UK 2026, 100 mins, English with German sub­tit­les
    Director: Jonatan Etzler
    Screenplay: Jess O’Kane
    Cinematography: Nea Asphäll
    Editing: Robert Krantz
    Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Jacob Anderson, Eddie Waller, Nia Brown

    Trailer:
    nach oben
  • Futur Drei

    Futur Drei

    A film by Faraz Shariat. German, Farsi ver­si­on with German and English subtitles

    [Credits] [Tickets & Termine] [Trailer]

    High-cut trou­sers, skin-tight t‑shirt, short, per­oxi­de-blond hair. On his bir­th­day, Parvis cele­bra­tes by ste­al­ing a bot­t­le from the bar at the club and dancing. The son of Iranian par­ents, he has estab­lished hims­elf in the attic of his par­ents’ house in a quiet new housing estate in Lower Saxony and is busy try­ing out ever­y­thing and any­thing from sex dates to raves. After get­ting caught shop­lif­ting, he is sent to do com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice in a refu­gee shel­ter whe­re he falls in love with Amon, who has fled Iran with his sis­ter Banafshe Arezu. The trio enjoys a sum­mer of fier­ce par­ty­ing till dawn, colou­red by the rea­li­sa­ti­on that, in their dif­fe­rent ways, none of them is at home in Germany.
    In his powerful, semi-bio­gra­phi­cal debut pep­pe­red with pop-cul­tu­ral refe­ren­ces, Faraz Shariat unfolds a tale of inten­se first love. With a pre­cise grasp of social con­text, he offers a sen­si­ti­ve insight into the expe­ri­ence of migrants in Germany caught bet­ween fee­ling for­eign, being excluded and obtai­ning the per­ma­nent right to stay, and shows how even sub­se­quent gene­ra­ti­ons are still in the pro­cess of arriving.

    Credits:

    DE 2020, 91 Min., German, Farsi ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les
    Regie: Faraz Shariat
    Kamera: Simon Vu
    Schnitt: Friederike Hohmuth
    mit: Benjamin Radjaipour, Banafshe Hourmazdi, Eidin Jalali 


    Trailer:

    nach oben

  • Bagger Drama

    Bagger Drama

    A film by Piet Baumgartner. In Swiss-German and English with German subtitles. 

    [Credits] [Tickets & Termine] [Trailer]

    A fami­ly lives and works in their fami­ly-run busi­ness, which rents out, sells and repairs excava­tors. Whilst they are preoc­cu­p­ied with ever­y­day life and the demands of the busi­ness, they find it dif­fi­cult to talk open­ly about fee­lings, love and inti­ma­cy. When their daugh­ter is kil­led in an acci­dent, the family’s life is thrown into turm­oil. The son feels misun­ders­tood and choo­ses to move to the USA rather than take over the busi­ness. The father seeks dis­trac­tion and falls in love with the new choir direc­tor, whilst the mother remains iso­la­ted at home with the dog. Grief leads to a loss of words; misun­derstan­dings mount up and erupt into anger and con­flict. ‘Bagger Drama’ tells the sto­ry of a fami­ly that, despi­te all the chal­lenges, tri­es to come to terms with loss, love and pain – a moving coming-of-age film about peo­p­le sear­ching for ans­wers and machi­nes that keep working tirelessly.

    „A fami­ly seems indes­truc­ti­ble, unless it des­troys its­elf. I am both ama­zed and fasci­na­ted by how litt­le one is able to say within a fami­ly about the things that trou­ble one most. Where I come from, pro­blems aren’t dis­cus­sed; you deal with such things on your own.
    My way out of this fami­ly vacu­um is through sto­rytel­ling. Interestingly, the sto­ry beco­mes neither bet­ter nor worse, but tel­ling it crea­tes a sen­se of distance. This allows me, as someone invol­ved, to look at the sto­ry objec­tively. Then the pro­cess of coming to terms with it can begin. It is my most per­so­nal work to date.” Piet Baumgartner

    Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

    Credits:

    CH 2024, 96 mins, Swiss German, English with German sub­tit­les,
    Director: Piet Baumgartner
    Cinematography: Pascal Reinmann
    Editing: Tania Stöcklin
    Starring: Bettina Stucky, Phil Hayes, Vincent Furrer, Maximilian Reichert, Karin Pfammatter, Ramona Saluz, Nathanael Schaer and many more

    Trailer:
    Bagger Drama – Trailer (EN)
    nach oben
  • Das unmögliche Bild

    Das unmögliche Bild

    A film by Sandra Wollner. On 22 & 23 August at the fsk. In German

    [Credits] [Tickets & Termine] [Trailer]

    A see­mingly ordi­na­ry fami­ly life in Austria after the Second World War. Johanna takes over her father’s old Super 8 came­ra and obser­ves her rela­ti­ves: her litt­le sis­ter, their dog Cora, her mother, her grand­par­ents and, abo­ve all, the many women who, sip­ping schnapps and smo­king, gather time and again for ‘Grandma’s Cooking Club’ in her flat. But here’s the thing: the only thing they cook is hot water, which is car­ri­ed into hid­den rooms, becau­se the fami­ly is har­bou­ring a secret.

    Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

    Credits:

    DE/AT 2016 , 70 Min., deut­sche Fassung
    Regie: Sandra Wollner
    Kamera:
    Timm Kröger
    Schnitt: Stephan Bechinger
    mit: Alexander E. Fennon, Isabel Schmidt, Mira Reisinger, Isabella Simon

    Trailer:
    nach oben
  • filmPOLSKA 2026

    filmPOLSKA 2026

    Once again this year, the lar­gest Polish film fes­ti­val out­side Poland invi­tes you to dis­co­ver the diver­si­ty of Polish cine­ma – with the latest fea­ture films, docu­men­ta­ries and short films, film dis­cus­sions with inter­na­tio­nal guests, exci­ting spe­cial pro­gram­mes and num­e­rous events cent­red on Polish cine­ma. At the fsk, we are scree­ning the com­pe­ti­ti­on films and two specials:

    [Trailer]

    Silver

    PL/FI/NO 2025, 78 mins, Original ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les Director: Natalia Koniarz / Cinematography: Stanisław Cuske / Editor: Yael Bitton / Music: Yngve Leidulv Sætre, Marcin Lenarczyk

    Over the cour­se of five cen­tu­ries, vast quan­ti­ties of sil­ver have been extra­c­ted from Cerro Rico. It has brought gre­at wealth to the Bolivian city of Potosí at its foot, but also count­less casu­al­ties. Today, the hol­lo­wed-out moun­tain resem­bles a Swiss cheese, with only a handful of dare­de­vils – or despe­ra­te souls – ven­tu­ring into the crumbling tun­nels. They have neither modern tech­no­lo­gy nor insu­rance cover, nor a health­ca­re sys­tem. The poli­ce have with­drawn; the area is dan­ge­rous and rife with crime, and the water is con­ta­mi­na­ted. Many of the miners are underage; hard­ly anyo­ne lives to see their 40th bir­th­day.
    In her dis­ar­ming and remar­kab­ly matu­re stu­dy of this milieu – remar­kab­le for a debut – Natalia Koniarz plun­ges us right into the heart of this hosti­le envi­ron­ment, which reflects much of what is going wrong in the glo­bal eco­no­my. She takes us into claus­tro­pho­bic shafts whe­re dyna­mi­te is con­stant­ly explo­ding, into makes­hift huts wit­hout elec­tri­ci­ty, into brot­hels and onto spoil heaps that beco­me play­grounds. The focus is on child­ren who were born into the­se con­di­ti­ons and who, from the moment of their birth, had vir­tual­ly no future. We stumb­le through the men­acing sce­n­ery wit­hout any sen­se of chro­no­lo­gy or spa­ti­al ori­en­ta­ti­on, sens­ing that we, too, bear some of the bla­me. [Rainer Mende]

    10 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Special guest: Natalia Koniarz
    [Tickets]

    Miasto, któ­re wyjechało / The Town That Drove Away 

    PL 2025, 70 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir/Screenplay/Cinematography: Natalia Pietsch, Grzegorz Piekarski / Editors: Alan Zejer, Michał Buczek / Music: Jozef van Wissem, Ali Ayhan

    The anci­ent town of Hasankeyf on the Tigris, set amidst the rug­ged moun­tai­nous land­scape of Northern Kurdistan, is home to an old fort­ress. Its caves, too, are of gre­at cul­tu­ral and his­to­ri­cal value. Yet time and again, loud explo­si­ons shake the town – not from gun­fi­re, but from blas­ting. The Turkish govern­ment has deci­ded to build a huge dam that will gra­du­al­ly flood the town.
    Life is gra­du­al­ly fading away; bit by bit, the buil­dings are being demo­lished and the resi­dents evacua­ted. A few kilo­me­t­res away, a brand-new town awaits them – meti­cu­lous­ly plan­ned and effi­ci­ent, but devo­id of histo­ry and soul. This is whe­re Burak, a hair­dress­er, and his deaf father, along with the young Rengin, who dreams of stu­dy­ing far away, are also due to move. They are among the last to remain in Hasankeyf, whilst next door the excava­tors are dis­mant­ling the his­to­ric buil­dings. The direc­tors do not pre­sent a poli­ti­cal pam­phlet on the deli­be­ra­te des­truc­tion of natu­re and cul­tu­re, but rather a sen­si­ti­ve por­trait of peo­p­le who­se fami­li­ar sur­roun­dings are sim­ply dis­ap­pearing. Using a sta­tic came­ra and subt­ly employ­ed music, they casual­ly gather small details which, taken tog­e­ther, tell a grand sto­ry. [Rainer Mende]

    11 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guests: Natalia Pietsch & Grzegorz Piekarski
    [Tickets]

    :
    Powiedz mi, co czu­jesz / Tell Me What You Feel

    PL 2026, 102 mins, Original ver­si­on with English sub­tit­les. Dir: Łukasz Ronduda / Screenplay: Łukasz Ronduda, Agata K. Koschmieder / Cinematography: Weronika Bilska / Editing: Agata Cierniak. Cast: Jan Sałasiński, Izabella Dudziak, Anita Poddębniak, Adam Szyszkowski, Aleksandra Justa, Andrzej Konopka and others.

    Patryk comes from the coun­try­si­de, whe­re his desti­tu­te par­ents scra­pe by sel­ling scrap metal on a run-down farm. But he doesn’t want to beco­me a far­mer – he rents a cheap room in Warsaw, wears bright­ly colou­red second-hand clo­thes and tri­es to make a name for hims­elf as an artist.
    One day, he stumbles upon a per­for­mance art exhi­bi­ti­on whe­re Maria buys visi­tors’ tears and dis­plays them. She comes from a wealt­hy fami­ly in the city – yet during a role-play, it beco­mes clear that Maria, just like the tearless Patryk, is deep­ly bur­den­ed by trau­ma. In some respects, they are kind­red spi­rits. Their rela­ti­onship deve­lo­ps into a rol­ler­co­as­ter ride that beco­mes a tri­al by fire on social, ero­tic, emo­tio­nal and artis­tic levels. Once again, Łukasz Ronduda pulls off a mas­ter­stro­ke by seam­less­ly embed­ding artis­tic ques­ti­ons and real works of art into a film nar­ra­ti­ve, ensu­ring that neither the dis­cour­se beco­mes too intellec­tu­al nor the art is tri­via­li­sed. Having alre­a­dy por­tray­ed an artist cou­ple in Heart of Love (2017), he now intro­du­ces the aspect of clas­sism into a rela­ti­onship sto­ry. In doing so, he once again draws on real-life models – Patryk’s model is the artist Patryk Różycki, whilst the visu­al artist Karolina Balcer ser­ved as the inspi­ra­ti­on for the cha­rac­ter of Maria. [Rainer Mende]

    12 September / 3.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Andrzej Konopka
    [Tickets]

    Capo / Permit

    PL 2025, 90 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir: Robert Kwilman / Screenplay: Robert Kwilman, Malwina Górecka, Kirk Kjeldsen / Cinematography: Kasper Lorek / Editing: Ming-Wei Chiang Cast: Daniel Felipe, Jimenez Vaquez, Ivan Sharan, Josiana Costales, Justa Beatriz Blanco Rojas, Alejandra Herrera, Victor Venecia Fuentes, Gerson Isai Lam Lopez, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Michał Balicki and others

    A group of men and women from Latin America are dri­ven in a small mini­bus to a remo­te part of the Polish coun­try­si­de. There, they are pre­sen­ted with con­tracts writ­ten in a lan­guage they do not under­stand, in which the 3,500 dol­lars pro­mi­sed back home have sud­den­ly beco­me 3,500 zło­ty. Worse still: they are forced to hand over their pass­ports and, ins­tead of working in a hotel, the­se con­tracts bind them to mono­to­no­us, gruel­ling work in a butcher’s shop. They are also fleeced for extra money for the shab­by hos­tel, and health and safe­ty is a for­eign con­cept. What was plan­ned as a stay to earn money soon feels like a pri­son with forced labour.
    Robert Kwilman brea­thes new life into social cine­ma in the style of Ken Loach and skilful­ly employs his tech­ni­ques. In the style of a docu­men­ta­ry, with a shaky hand­held came­ra, wit­hout music or arti­fi­ci­al light­ing, he brings us as clo­se as pos­si­ble to the film’s tra­gic heroes, who soon ask them­sel­ves: should they sil­ent­ly endu­re this bla­tant inju­s­ti­ce, rebel, or flee? Without sugar-coa­ting any­thing, Kwilman por­trays a Poland that has trans­for­med from a coun­try of emi­gra­ti­on to one of immi­gra­ti­on, with all its dark sides. [Rainer Mende]

    12 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Robert Kwilman
    [Tickets]

    Dziecko z pyłu / Child of Dust / Kinder des Staubs

    PL/VN/CH/CZ/QA 2025, 93 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir/Screenplay: Weronika Mliczewska / Cinematography: Mikael Lypinski / Editing: Marcin Sucharski, Mateusz Romaszkan / Music: Joaquin Garcia

    Sang is a ‘dust child’ – he has a Vietnamese mother and an American father who left the coun­try after the end of the Vietnam War and has been miss­ing ever sin­ce. As a fat­her­less child of mixed eth­nic heri­ta­ge, this slum dwel­ler and illi­te­ra­te man has felt mar­gi­na­li­sed all his life and has always lived in pre­ca­rious cir­cum­s­tances. But he has not given up the fight for a life of digni­ty – whe­ther by start­ing a fami­ly or by sear­ching for his father. And even in a docu­men­ta­ry, mira­cles some­ti­mes hap­pen: a DNA test leads Sang to his father, who­se child­ren in the US had pre­vious­ly known not­hing of their brot­her in Vietnam. Crossing all cul­tu­ral and lin­gu­i­stic boun­da­ries, they make cont­act and soon embark on a joint pro­ject: to bring Sang to the United States so that he can be clo­se to his second fami­ly and, even­tual­ly, bring his wife and daugh­ter over to join him. With her first fea­ture-length film, Weronika Mliczewska has hers­elf achie­ved a small mira­cle. She gets asto­nis­hin­gly clo­se to her prot­ago­nists and uses her came­ra to docu­ment a blend of dra­ma, crime thril­ler and fami­ly tra­ge­dy, brim­ming with extra­or­di­na­ry sce­nes and sur­pri­sing twists. In doing so, she tack­les ques­ti­ons of home, social struc­tu­re, guilt, respon­si­bi­li­ty and ato­ne­ment at a breathl­ess pace.
    [Rainer Mende]

    13 September / 3:00pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Weronika Mliczewska
    [Tickets]

    Dom Dobry / Home Sweet Home

    PL 2025, 107 mins, Original ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Director: Wojciech Smarzowski / Cinematography: Paweł Tybora / Screenplay: Krzysztof Komander / Music: Mikołaj Trzaska, Cast: Agata Turkot, Tomasz Schuchardt, Agata Kulesza, Maria Sobocińska, Łukasz Gawroński, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Magdalena Smalara, Julia Kijowska, Andrzej Konopka and others.

    Gośka, no lon­ger a spring chi­cken, can bare­ly stand living with her shrewish mother, who can’t stop drin­king or nag­ging her daugh­ter, even at Christmas. Fortunately, the sophisti­ca­ted Grzesiek turns up, a man with both feet firm­ly on the ground. When things go pear-shaped at home once again, Gośka spon­ta­neous­ly packs her bags and moves in with him.
    Suddenly, ever­y­thing seems to be taking a turn for the bet­ter – they tra­vel the world tog­e­ther; the mar­ria­ge pro­po­sal in Venice is fol­lo­wed by the wed­ding and the birth of a daugh­ter. Yet the dome­stic idyll gra­du­al­ly turns into a night­ma­re. For within their own four walls, Grzesiek beco­mes a tyrant who does not shy away from psy­cho­lo­gi­cal and phy­si­cal abu­se.
    With his ninth fea­ture film, Smarzowski once again impres­si­ve­ly mana­ges to gar­ner cri­ti­cal accla­im and awards, whilst also raking in box-office takings and spar­king a social deba­te. Once again, along­side Krzysztof Komander, he pro­ves hims­elf a mas­ter at the editing desk and – thanks in part to the per­for­man­ces of Agata Turkot and Tomasz Schuchardt as Gośka and Grzesiek – mana­ges to strike a balan­ce bet­ween a wide­ly acces­si­ble dra­ma and a sophisti­ca­ted art­house film. [Rainer Mende]

    13 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Wojciech Smarzowski
    [Tickets]

    Królestwo / Kingdom / Königreich 

    PL 2025, 112 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir/Screenplay: Michał Ciechomski / Cinematography: Paweł Grabarek / Screenplay: Agnieszka Białek-Zaborowska / Music: Lubomir Grzelak Cast: Bartosz Mikulak, Julian Świeżewski, Jacek Poniedziałek, Aleksander Kaleta, Dawid Piejko, Mateusz Łasowski, Michał Włodarczyk and others

    Contemporary Poland is a war zone. Warsaw’s sky­scra­pers are ridd­led with holes, the streets are lit­te­red with corp­ses and shot-up cars, the govern­ment has gone into hiding, and the civi­li­an popu­la­ti­on is try­ing to flee the coun­try whilst the ‘Neo-Barbarians’ con­ti­nue their attacks.
    After losing his job too, Dawid actual­ly intends to be smug­g­led abroad with his par­ents. But then he fol­lows his brot­her to the ‘Black Spiders’ – a dubio­us, strict­ly hier­ar­chi­cal group of mar­ti­al-loo­king skin­heads with subt­le homo­ero­tic under­to­nes. They appear to be the last to still stand up to the inva­ders, pre­pa­ring for the final batt­le with small-sca­le mili­ta­ry ope­ra­ti­ons.
    Michał Ciechomski’s fea­ture film debut is cine­ma­tic art in its purest form. In his mas­terful­ly craf­ted dys­to­pia, no long take is ordi­na­ry; every shot by Paweł Grabarek’s came­ra embo­dies an ori­gi­nal idea. Jacek Hamela’s expe­ri­men­tal sound design, too, con­sis­t­ent­ly fol­lows a crea­ti­ve prin­ci­ple. This visi­on of war is not heroic action cine­ma, but an audio­vi­su­al chall­enge that makes the col­lap­se of an order almost phy­si­cal­ly pal­pa­ble. [Rainer Mende]

    14 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Michał Ciechomski
    [Tickets]

    LARP. Miłość, trol­le i inne ques­ty / LARP

    PL 2025, 90 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, , Dir: Kordian Kądziela / Screenplay: Kordian Kądziela, Michał Wawrzecki / Cinematography: Cezary Stolecki / Editor: Magdalena Chowańska / Music: Jan Sanejko / Cast: Filip Zaręba, Martyna Byczkowska, Hubert Łapacz, Mikołaj Chilimończyk, Maciej Bisiorek, Agnieszka Rajda, Andrzej Konopka, Edyta Olszówka, Michał Balicki, Bartłomiej Topa and others.

    The Lower Silesian coun­try­si­de isn’t exact­ly brim­ming with attrac­tions for teen­agers. But its wood­lands pro­vi­de the per­fect back­drop for spraw­ling live-action role-play­ing games. It’s cer­tain­ly no coin­ci­dence that their idol, the cele­bra­ted fan­ta­sy aut­hor Lacroix, hails from their back­wa­ter of all places.
    Yet it is in ever­y­day life that the lan­ky, self-con­scious ado­le­s­cent Sergiusz must fight his toug­hest batt­les. He is con­stant­ly bul­lied by the son of the village’s richest man; his sin­gle father would like to mould him into a com­pe­ti­ti­ve ath­le­te; and the beau­tiful Helena, who sud­den­ly turns up at school, is making the wrong fri­ends.
    Kordian Kądziela’s cri­ti­cal­ly acclai­med box-office hit has ever­y­thing a clas­sic coming-of-age film needs – social con­flicts, a love sto­ry and a healt­hy dose of youthful exu­berance. What makes it spe­cial, along­side num­e­rous ori­gi­nal visu­al ide­as (inclu­ding an incon­gruous 1990s set­ting) and various ton­gue-in-cheek jibes at the LARP and fan­ta­sy sce­nes, is the magni­fi­cent per­for­mance of Andrzej Konopka, who has won mul­ti­ple awards for his role as an over­whel­med father and pro­vin­cial poli­ce­man. [Rainer Mende]

    15 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino
    [Tickets]

    Nie ma duchów w mieszka­niu na Dobrej / No Ghosts On Good Street / Es gibt kei­ne
    Geister in der Wohnung in der Guten Straße

    PL 2025, 90 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir: Emi Buchwald / Screenplay: Emi Buchwald, Karol Marczak / Cinematography: Tomasz Gajewski / Editing: Anna Łuka / Music: Katarzyna Gawlik, Jerzy Rogiewicz Cast: Bartłomiej Deklewa, Izabella Dudziak, Tymoteusz Rożynek, Karolina Rzepa, Piotr Napierała, Daria Muszyńska, Andrzej Kłak, Gabriela Arak, Aleksander Janiszewski, Krzysztof Drozdowski and others.

    The came­ra slow­ly pans through fur­nis­hed rooms; sounds from a distant past can be heard; the flat in the old buil­ding appears to be emp­ty. Yet the­re is someone sit­ting on the win­dows­ill – it is a night­ma­re, a mythi­cal figu­re that sits on people’s chests at night and squeezes the life out of them.
    The four very dif­fe­rent siblings
    cle­ar­ly sen­se the pre­sence of this night­ma­re. The flat belongs to them, alt­hough only one of them still lives the­re. But it is not fig­ments of the ima­gi­na­ti­on that are suf­fo­ca­ting them, but very real worries that pla­gue young peo­p­le sear­ching for their place in life in a big city like Warsaw – toxic rela­ti­onships, panic attacks, fear of com­mit­ment. With refres­hing non­cha­lance and a level of dra­ma­tic matu­ri­ty asto­nis­hing for a debut, Emi Buchwald has her fin­ger on the pul­se of a gene­ra­ti­on in which ever­yo­ne is batt­ling their own demons. Perhaps this batt­le can only be won in one way – as a group, or bet­ter still: as a fami­ly. The sen­se of ever­y­day rea­li­ty, which is also reflec­ted in the lan­guage typi­cal of Gen Z, the blend of tra­ge­dy and come­dy, and a subt­ly appli­ed dose of meta­phy­sics come across to German audi­en­ces as a suc­cessful mix of AKIZ’s Der Nachtmahr and Dietrich Brüggemann’s 3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad. [Rainer Mende]

    16 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino
    [Tickets]

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  • Schwarzers Kosmos

    Schwarzers Kosmos

    A film by Klaus Martens. In German with English subtitles

    [Credits] [Tickets & Termine] [Trailer]

    The Düsseldorf-based artist Bernd Schwarzer has devo­ted hims­elf body and soul to a total work of art. Schwarzer calls it the ‘Europa Kunstwerk’. Given their poli­ti­cal­ly char­ged natu­re, his pain­tings hang not only in muse­ums, but also at Bellevue Palace, the resi­dence of the German Federal President, in the Bundestag, and soon in the European Parliament. Although Schwarzer’s impas­to tech­ni­que and his tech­ni­cal skill are uni­que – some even cla­im he is a geni­us – he is losing con­trol of hims­elf and his art. Schwarzer is test­ing the pati­ence of his coll­ec­tors and gal­lery owners to the limit and dri­ving tho­se who belie­ve in him to sheer des­pair. The artist seems to be losing all sen­se of pro­por­ti­on when it comes to hims­elf and his art.

    The film ‘Schwarzer’s Cosmos’ is a por­trait of an eccen­tric art mar­ket, com­ple­te with all the asso­cia­ted cli­chés of non-con­for­mi­ty, free­dom, geni­us and mad­ness. By the end of the film, the only ques­ti­on that remains is whe­ther the artist hims­elf will sur­vi­ve this madness.

    Credits:

    DE 2026, 90 mins, German with English sub­tit­les
    Director: Klaus Martens
    Cinematography: Frederik Walker, Frank Kranstedt
    Editing: Fabian Oberhem

    Trailer:
    SCHWARZERS KOSMOS – Offizieller Trailer

    im Kino mit deut­schen Untertiteln.

    nach oben
  • Evidence

    Evidence

    A film by Lee Anne Schmitt. In English with German subtitles.

    [Credits] [Tickets & Termine] [Trailer]

    Poisoned water, dama­ged earth, and ele­va­ted can­cer rates: envi­ron­men­tal clean-up sites are one of the lega­ci­es left behind by the American che­mi­cal and muni­ti­ons manu­fac­tu­rer “Olin Corporation”. Its other lega­cy was the John M. Olin Foundation, which dona­ted mil­li­ons to pushing a con­ser­va­ti­ve agen­da from the 1970s to the ear­ly 2000s. As a by-pro­duct or direct effort, the Olin Corporation and other con­ser­va­ti­ve think tanks have had a deep and unsett­ling impact on American poli­tics, fami­ly values, and women’s health. Working again the field of the 16mm New Left essay film, Lee Anne Schmitt con­nects an array of topics, books, and objects to reflect on the rise of the new con­ser­va­ti­ve move­ment and the effects of dark money on American poli­tics and cul­tu­re. In easi­ly her most per­so­nal film to date – as her father work­ed for Olin – she con­siders the­se values and their impli­ca­ti­ons after beco­ming a mother. In the face of appal­ling attacks on women’s bio­lo­gi­cal rights and the cur­rent domi­nan­ce of the Republican par­ty, Evidence is a sobering pri­mer on the sta­te of America today.

    Evidence
    Credits:

    US 2025, 76 mins, English with German sub­tit­les
    Director, cine­ma­to­gra­phy, editing: Lee Anne Schmitt

    Trailer:
    „Evidence” | Clip | Berlinale 2025

    im Kino mit deut­schen Untertiteln.

    nach oben