A film by Jörg Adolph, Edgar Reitz. In German.

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In 1968, a class­room in a girls’ high school in Munich is trans­for­med into a film stu­dio under the direc­tion of the young Edgar Reitz. The film les­son beg­ins: the first docu­men­ted attempt in cine­ma histo­ry to teach film aes­the­tics as a stand-alo­ne sub­ject. In 2023, Edgar Reitz, now world-famous as the direc­tor of the film epic Heimat, is approa­ched by an elder­ly woman who iden­ti­fies hers­elf as one of his pupils from 1968. The two arran­ge a class reuni­on. Compiled from a docu­men­ta­ry made about the pro­ject at the time, the Super 8 films shot by the pupils and the film­ed reuni­on in 2023, a kind of long expo­sure of the last 55 years of film histo­ry is crea­ted. Are the per­so­na­li­ties of the pupils alre­a­dy evi­dent in the exer­cise films? And what do the women have to say now about con­tem­po­ra­ry film cul­tu­re? Filmstunde_23 is a decla­ra­ti­on of love for filmmaking.

Credits:

DE 2024, 89 Min.,
Regie: Jörg Adolph, Edgar Reitz
Kamera: Matthias Reitz-Zausinger, Markus Schindler, Daniel Schönauer, Thomas Mauch (1968), Dedo Weigert (1968)
Schnitt: Jörg Adolph, Anja Pohl

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A film by Sabine Lidl. In English with German subtitles.

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“There is no sepa­ra­ti­on bet­ween me and what I pho­to­graph.” Nan Goldin views her per­so­nal and pro­fes­sio­nal lives as one inex­tri­ca­ble whole.This world-famous pho­to­grapher por­trays peo­p­le she comes across and tho­se who accom­pa­ny her through life to crea­te inti­ma­te and can­did visu­al tes­ti­mo­nies of life.

Credits:

DE 2023, 62 Min., engl. OmU
Regie & Kamera: Sabine Lidl
Schnitt: Barbara Gies
mit: Nan Goldin, Clemens Schick, Käthe Kruse, Joachim Sartorius, Piotr Nathan, Christine Fenzl, Guido Costa, Jack Ritchey, Thomas Dupal

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A film by Thomas Riedelsheimer. In English and German with German and English subtitles.

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Light is a fasci­na­ting phe­no­me­non. Without light, the­re would be no cine­ma, no film – and no life. So light is at the ori­gin of ever­y­thing, and yet it remains invi­si­ble to the eye until it hits mat­ter. This moment is – quite lite­ral­ly – the start­ing point of Thomas Riedelsheimer’s latest work, for the spring­time spec­ta­cle of rain­bow shreds in the cine­ma­to­grapher and docu­men­ta­ry filmmaker’s flat beca­me the start­ing point of a search for the ori­gin of the images we form of this world. For this quest he dived deep into two sphe­res that seem to fol­low dif­fe­rent laws but always stri­ve to fathom the magi­cal: phy­sics and art.
An intellec­tu­al and poe­tic ping pong game evol­ves bet­ween rese­ar­chers from the Max Planck Institute in Erlangen and the “Extreme Light Group” of the University of Glasgow as well as inter­na­tio­nal­ly renow­ned artists such as Ruth Jarman, Joe Gerhardt, Julie Brook, Johannes Brunner and Raimund Ritz. In its cour­se, the various per­spec­ti­ves on light lead to new insights on all sides that would hard­ly have been achie­ved wit­hout this metho­di­cal cross-over: about laser power and colour pig­ments, about black holes and floa­ting sculp­tures. In brief moments, the unin­itia­ted may even get some idea of the laws of quan­tum phy­sics, gene­ral­ly con­side­red impos­si­ble to visualise.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

Credits:

DE/GB 2024, 99 Min., engl./dt. Originalfassung mit deut­schen und eng­li­schen Untertiteln
Regie, Kamera, Schnitt: Thomas Riedelsheimer
Musik: Fred Frith, gab­by flu­ke-mogul

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A film by Mohammad Rasoulof. In Farsi with German subtitles.

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A tar­get of Iran’s hard­li­ne con­ser­va­ti­ve govern­ment for his films’ cri­ti­cism of the sta­te, direc­tor Mohammad Rasoulof fled his home coun­try to avo­id an eight-year pri­son sen­tence, though he hadn’t finis­hed editing his latest film yet. His sea­ring dra­ma The Seed of the Sacred Fig won a Special Prize from the jury and three other awards on its pre­mie­re at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is every bit as urgent and grip­ping as its real-life back­story would por­tend: long­time govern­ment worker Iman (Missagh Zareh) has just recei­ved a major pro­mo­ti­on to the role of judge’s inves­ti­ga­tor, to the hop­eful delight of his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani); at the same moment, a series of stu­dent pro­tests against the govern­ment have explo­ded in the streets, sto­king the sym­pa­thies of their inde­pen­dent-min­ded daugh­ters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). The gro­wing wedge bet­ween pro­gres­si­ve child­ren and tra­di­tio­nal par­ents inten­si­fies through a series of unsett­ling events that put Iman’s future in jeo­par­dy. Both para­noia thril­ler and dome­stic dra­ma, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is abo­ve all an epic of anti-patri­ar­chal poli­ti­cal conviction.

Credits:

IR, DE, FR 2024, 168 Min., far­si OmU
Regie: Mohammad Rasoulof
Kamera: Pooyan Aghababaei
Schnitt: Andrew Bird
mit Missagh Zareh, Soheila Golestani, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi

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A film by Payal Kapadia. In Malayalam and Hindi with German subtitles.

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In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s rou­ti­ne is trou­bled when she recei­ves an unex­pec­ted gift from her estran­ged hus­band. Her youn­ger room­ma­te, Anu, tri­es in vain to find a spot in the city to be inti­ma­te with her boy­fri­end. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desi­res to manifest.

Competition Cannes Filmfestival 2024: Grand Prix.

Credits:

IN, FR, NL, LU 2024, 114 Min., Malayalam, Hindi OmU
Regie: Payal Kapadia
Kamera: Rabadir Das
Schnitt: Clément Pinteaux
mit Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon 

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A film by Guan Hu. In Mandarin with German subtitles.

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On the edge of the Gobi desert in Northwest China, Lang returns to his home­town after being released from jail. While working for the local dog pat­rol team to clear the town of stray dogs befo­re the Olympic Games, he strikes up an unli­kely con­nec­tion with a black dog. These two lonely souls now embark on a new jour­ney together.

Credits:

GOU ZHEN
CN 2024, 110 Min., Mandarin OmU
Regie: Guan Hu
Kamera: Gao Weizhe
mit Eddie Peng, Zhangke Jia, Jing Liang

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A film by Nora Fingscheidt. In English with German subtitles.

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After an absence of more than ten years, Rona returns to her home on the remo­te Orkney Islands in Scotland. As she redis­co­vers the uni­que, wild land­scape in which she grew up, her child­hood memo­ries ming­le with tho­se from her more recent times as an addict. Her depar­tu­re for the city and sub­se­quent dis­so­lu­te years in London resul­ted in a pain­ful fall. But litt­le by litt­le, her encoun­ter with the enchan­ted, wind-bat­te­red coasts of the islands beco­mes a chan­ce for a new life.
Nora Fingscheidt’s adapt­a­ti­on of Amy Liptot’s auto­bio­gra­phi­cal best­sel­ler uses har­ro­wing flash­backs to depict Rona’s down­ward spi­ral in London and her time in a strict rehab pro­gram­me. However, the focus of the film is on her libe­ra­ti­on from per­so­nal demons through a con­nec­tion with the natu­re of her child­hood home.

Credits:

GB/DE 2024, 117 Min., engl. OmU
Regie: Nora Fingscheidt
Kamera: Yunus Roy Imer
Schnitt: Stephan Bechinger
mit Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu, Stephen Dillane, Saskia Reeves, Nabil Elouahabi, Izuka Hoyle, Lauren Lyle 

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A film by Jürgen Ellinghaus.

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Following in the foot­s­teps of the Hamburg film direc­tor Hans Schomburgk who tra­vel­led through the German colo­ny of Togo from Lomé to the north with his com­pa­n­ion and actress Meg Gehrts in 1913, Jürgen Ellinghaus screens the foo­ta­ge shot then at its loca­ti­ons in modern-day Togo. Schomburgk’s affir­ma­ti­ve images show slave labour, humi­lia­ti­on and the arro­gan­ce of the colo­ni­al power. The mate­ri­al is con­tras­ted by Gehrts’ roman­ti­cis­ing dia­ry ent­ries and other colo­ni­al reports which often testi­fy to a hor­ri­fy­ing coldness.

The scree­nings of this mate­ri­al, which has never been shown in Togo befo­re, prompt the audi­en­ces to reflect on tra­di­ti­on, ste­reo­ty­pes, the “white gaze.” In the vil­la­ges, the colo­ni­al images con­ju­re up memo­ries of han­ded down sto­ries. In the metro­po­lis of Lomé, young film enthu­si­asts deplo­re that the­se images were kept from them until today and dis­cuss in which con­texts they should be scree­ned. But “Togoland Projections” not only shows how much the­se pain­ful docu­ments and texts are nee­ded in con­tem­po­ra­ry Togo, becau­se they are part of the country’s histo­ry. The film also demons­tra­tes that they are nee­ded in Germany so we can take respon­si­bi­li­ty for our sup­pres­sed histo­ry and face our own racism – past and pre­sent.
Christoph Terhechte

Credits:

DE 2023, 96 Min., div. OmU
Regie: Jürgen Ellinghaus
Kamera: Rémi Jennequin
Schnitt: Nina Khada 

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A film by Andreas Hartmann, Arata Mori. In Japanese with German subtitles.

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Japanese night moving com­pa­nies spe­cia­li­se in the art of dis­ap­pearance and help tho­se who need or want to lea­ve their for­mer lives behind. On their night­ly mis­si­ons they dis­crete­ly and effi­ci­ent­ly orchest­ra­te people’s tran­si­ti­on to a new exis­tence. In the pro­cess, they often skirt the boun­da­ries of lega­li­ty due to the diver­se moti­va­tions behind the dis­ap­pearan­ces. Eva Weinmann

Credits:

DE/JP 2024, 86 Min., japan. OmU
Regie: Andreas Hartmann, Arata Mori
Kamera: Andreas Hartmann
Schnitt: Kai Eiermann (BFS)

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A film by Min Bahadur Bham. In Tibetian and Nepali with German and English subtitles

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In the heart of the Nepalese Himalayas, the spi­ri­ted Pema embraces a poly­and­rous mar­ria­ge with Tashi and his two youn­ger brot­hers. They initi­al­ly lead a har­mo­nious life, but when Tashi fails to return from a tra­ding trip to Lhasa, the legi­ti­ma­cy of Pema’s unborn child is ques­tio­ned by her com­mu­ni­ty. Determined to pro­ve her love and puri­ty, she embarks on a quest to find Tashi. Accompanied by her brot­her-in-law, her now de fac­to spou­se Karma, she goes into the wil­der­ness. Karma is a monk. After initi­al­ly resis­ting giving up his monastic life, he gra­du­al­ly comes to app­re­cia­te the simp­le exis­tence of a secu­lar life. However, urgent duties call him back to the monas­tery and Pema is left alo­ne. As she navi­ga­tes the harsh Himalayan ter­rain, her quest tran­s­cends the search for her miss­ing hus­band. Pema beco­mes incre­asing­ly immer­sed in a spi­ri­tu­al search for mea­ning in which every step brings her clo­ser to self-dis­co­very and liberation.

Credits:

NP/FR/NO/HK/CN/TK/TW/US/QA 2024, 150 Min.,
Tibetisch, Nepali Originalfassung mit deut­schen und eng­li­schen Untertiteln
Regie: Min Bahadur Bham
Kamera: Aziz Zhambakiyev
Schnitt: Liao Ching Sung, Kiran Shrestha
mit: Thinley Lhamo, Sonam Topden, Tenzin Dalha, Karma Wangyal Gurung, Karma Shakya, Loten Namling, Tsering Lhamo Gurung, Janga Bahadur Lama 

Trailer:

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