A film by Julia von Heinz. In German with English subtitles.

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Germany is struck by a vio­lent series of racist ter­ror attacks. 20-year-old Luisa joins a sub­di­vi­si­on of the Antifa to oppo­se the upri­sing neo-Nazi move­ment. With her reck­less actions, she not only fights against the extre­me right but also tri­es to impress Alfa, an Antifa acti­vist she is secret­ly in love with. Soon, things esca­la­te, and Luisa and her fri­ends clash over the ques­ti­on if vio­lence could ever be a legi­ti­ma­te poli­ti­cal ans­wer to fascism and hatred.

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DE 2020 ‚111 Min., dt OmeU
Regie & Buch: Julia von Heinz
Kamera: Daniela Knapp
Schnitt: Georg Söring
mit: Mala Emde, Tonio Schneider, Luisa-Céline Gaffron, Andreas Lust

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A film by Johannes M. Schmit. In German with English subtitles.

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Summer in Brandenburg. Markus is torn bet­ween the love for his grand­mo­thers in need of care and the lon­ging for a dif­fe­rent life in Berlin. A crowd of shim­me­ring demons keeps appearing in his day­d­reams. An allu­si­on to the que­er cho­sen fami­ly that awaits him in the city and saves him from his loneli­ne­ss? Markus‘ boxes to move to the big city are packed. So when he falls in love with Duc things get even more complicated.

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DE 2020, 81 Min., dt. OmeU
Regie: Johannes M. Schmit
Kamera: Smina Bluth
Schnitt: Antonella Sarubbi
mit Tucké Royale, Monika Zimmering, Jalda Rebling, Minh Duc Pham u.a.

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As a new pro­gram-high­light, the 10th Kurdish Film Festival Berlin (8−14 October) shows expe­ri­men­tal short films from Kurdish count­ries of ori­gin and the dia­spo­ra. The sel­ec­tion offers spe­cial cine­ma­tic impres­si­ons bet­ween film and con­tem­po­ra­ry art. Critical, crea­ti­ve and com­plex reflec­tions from Kurdish perspectives.
Among them is PARADISE by the Hamburg artists* Leyla Yenirce and Mazlum Nergiz – the film ver­si­on of the art instal­la­ti­on of the same name, which deals with the emo­tio­nal lan­guage of the images around Kurdish mar­tyrs and free­dom figh­ters. The expe­ri­men­tal short film BARIKAT shows a per­for­mance by the artist Mirkan Deniz, inspi­red by the dai­ly fate of Kurds* living under cur­few in various regi­ons of Turkey.

The rest of the fes­ti­val pro­gram will be shown in the cine­mas Moviemento and Babylon Mitte, as well as for the most part online: https://kurdishfilmfestivalberlin.kinow.tv/de/

[Tickets]

Oct. 10th 8pm:

The Day I Saved The Kurds von Şener Özmen
No! 1506600XXXX von Leyla Toprak (mit Q&A)
Paradise von Leyla Yenirce, Mazlum Nergiz (mit Q&A)
Barikat von Mirkan Deniz (mit Q&A)
Munzur von Rojda Tuğrul
Küpeli von Metin Akdemir- Çetin Baskın
Our bright future von Ezgi Kılınçarslan (mit Q&A)

A film by Xavier Dolan. In French and English with German subtitles.

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Suppressed love and an ode to fri­end­ship: Matthias & Maxime is a typi­cal Dolan film, full of bound­less ener­gy and romance. Max (Xavier Dolan) and Matthias (Gabriel d’Almeida Freitas) have been best fri­ends sin­ce child­hood. But now Max is hea­ding off to Australia to final­ly get his life tog­e­ther. On their fare­well tour from par­ty to par­ty, the fri­ends meet a film stu­dent who impul­si­ve­ly casts both for a pro­ject. When they then have to kiss on came­ra, it’s as if they’ve been struck by light­ning. Unexpected fee­lings bloom, which Matthias vehe­men­t­ly rejects – a reac­tion which in turn hits Max very hard.

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CA 2019, 119 Min., frz. OmU,
Regie, Buch & Schnitt: Xavier Dolan
Kamera: André Turpin
mit Gabriel D’Almeida Freitas, Xavier Dolan, Pier-Luc Funk, Samuel Gauthier, Antoine Pilon, Adib Alkhalidey

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

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Heshmat, an exem­pla­ry hus­band and father, gets up very ear­ly every day. Where does he go? Pouya can­not ima­gi­ne kil­ling ano­ther man, yet he is told he must do so. Javad doesn’t know that pro­po­sing to his bel­oved won’t be the only sur­pri­se on her bir­th­day. Bahram is a phy­si­ci­an but is unable to prac­ti­ce medi­ci­ne. He has deci­ded to explain to his visi­ting nie­ce the reason for his life as an out­cast. The four sto­ries that com­pri­se Sheytan vojud nadarad (There Is No Evil) offer varia­ti­ons on the cru­cial the­mes of moral strength and the death penal­ty, asking to what ext­ent indi­vi­du­al free­dom can be expres­sed under a des­po­tic regime and its see­mingly ine­s­ca­pa­ble thre­ats. Mohammad Rasoulof only crea­tes a loo­se nar­ra­ti­ve link bet­ween the­se sto­ries, and yet they are all tra­gi­cal­ly and inex­orab­ly con­nec­ted. In the con­text of struc­tu­ral oppres­si­on, choice seems to be limi­t­ed to eit­her resis­ting or sur­vi­ving. But with each abrupt­ly inter­rupt­ed sto­ry, we are urged to con­sider how men and women can assert their free­dom even in such situations.

Golden Baer – Berlinale 2020

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OT: Sheytan vojud nadarad, IR/DE/SZ 2020,
139 Min., far­si OmU,
Regie & Buch: Mohammad Rasoulof
Kamera: Ashkan Ashkani
Schnitt: Mohammadreza Muini, Meysam Muini
mit: Ehsan Mirhosseini, Shaghayegh, Kaveh Ahangar, Alirezy Zareparast, Salar Khamseh

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A film by Stéphanie Chuat & Véronique Reymond. In German, French and English with German subtitles.

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Lisa has given up her ambi­ti­ons as a play­w­right in Berlin and moved to Switzerland with her child­ren and hus­band, who runs an inter­na­tio­nal school the­re. When her twin brot­her Sven, a star actor at Berlin’s Schaubühne theat­re, falls ill with leuk­aemia, Lisa returns to the German capi­tal. His hopes of get­ting back on the stage give Sven the strength he needs to fight the dise­a­se. But when his con­di­ti­on dete­rio­ra­tes and his mother, also an actor, pro­ves unre­lia­ble, Lisa takes the reins and whisks her brot­her back to Switzerland. She hopes that new tre­at­ments, fami­ly life and moun­tain air will work a mira­cle. Brother and sis­ter, Berlin and Switzerland, life and theat­re, sick­ness and health. With its out­stan­ding lea­ding cast, Schwesterlein inter­wea­ves the­se com­ple­men­ta­ry bina­ries into a matu­re, moving and com­plex dra­ma. This film explo­res the mea­ning of heal­ing and sacri­fice, the inte­gri­ty of an adult sibling rela­ti­onship – a topic that has rare­ly been addres­sed as it is here – and artis­tic work as a core aspi­ra­ti­on in life. A fairy tale, with two adults as Hansel and Gretel, the theat­re as the gin­ger­b­read house and the ill­ness as the evil witch.

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CH 2020, 99 Min., dt.,frz,engl. OmU
Regie, Buch: Stéphanie Chuat, Véronique Reymond
Kamera: Filip Zumbrunn
Schnitt: Myriam Rachmuth
mit: Nina Hoss, Lars Eidinger, Marthe Keller, Jens Albinus, Thomas Ostermeier, Linne-Lu Lungershausen, Noah Tscharland, Isabelle Caillat, Moritz Gottwald, Urs Jucker

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A film by Yulia Lokshina. In German, Polish, Russian and Romanian with German subtitles.

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In the meat fac­to­ry a worker dies. School child­ren rehe­ar­se Brecht. Two sto­ries from the land of poets, phi­lo­so­phers and pri­ce-cut­ters. Gently and pre­cis­e­ly and with cine­ma­tic fines­se Yulia Lokshina picks at the wound in our system.

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DE 2020, 92 Min., 
Buch & Regie: Yulia Lokshina 
Kamera: Zeno Legner, Lilli Pongratz
Schnitt: Urte Alfs, Yulia Lokshina

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A film by Kantemir Balagov. In Russian with German subtitles.

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1945, Leningrad. World War II has devas­ta­ted the city, demo­li­shing its buil­dings and lea­ving its citi­zens in tat­ters, phy­si­cal­ly and men­tal­ly. Although the sie­ge – one of the worst in histo­ry – is final­ly over, life and death con­ti­nue their batt­le in the wrecka­ge that remains. Two young women, Iya and Masha, search for mea­ning and hope in the strugg­le to rebuild their lives among­st the ruins. Jessica Kiang, Variety, calls it a “slow, fero­cious, and extra­or­di­na­ry second film from bla­zing 27-year-old Russian talent Kantemir Balagov.”

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Дылда  Dylda
RU 2019, 139 Min., russ. OmU
Regie: Kantemir Balagov
Kamera: Ksenia Sereda
Schnitt: Igor Litoninskiy
mit: Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Vasilisa Perelygina, Andrey Bykov, Igor Shirokov

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A film by Therese Koppe.

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Erika and Tine are 81 and have been a cou­ple for 40 years. The two women live on a farm in Brandenburg they res­to­red them­sel­ves and look back on eventful lives. In the GDR they both had to fight for per­so­nal and artis­tic free­dom and strug­g­led dai­ly with socia­lism, not to men­ti­on its actual­ly exis­ting con­tra­dic­tions. Unlike other GDR crea­ti­ve artists who cra­cked under the rejec­tion of their art and ide­as, they both take a humo­rous look back today at the mani­fold docu­ments of their lives, con­tex­tua­li­sing and con­tra­dic­ting the num­e­rous Stasi files with their own memo­ries, pho­tos, pain­tings, sculp­tures and texts. They use the con­ver­sa­ti­ons with the young direc­tor to take a clo­se look at their own (GDR) past, but also the post-reuni­fi­ca­ti­on peri­od, the pre­sent and future.

What can art do in times of social poli­ti­cal chall­enge? How can one stay true to ones­elf, art and one’s ide­als? Where are women still con­fron­ted by struc­tu­ral dis­cri­mi­na­ti­on today? How can social grie­van­ces be resol­ved tog­e­ther? By stay­ing natu­ral­ly clo­se to its prot­ago­nists, the film mana­ges to achie­ve an enchan­tingly lucid nar­ra­ti­ve about free­dom, auto­no­my, crea­ti­vi­ty and socia­li­ty – and, last but not least, a mar­vell­ous ode to love.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

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DE 2019, 74 Min., 
Buch & Regie: Therese Koppe
Kamera: Annegret Sachse
Schnitt: Evelyn Rack

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A film by Ines Johnson-Spain.

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»In a coun­try whe­re any devia­ti­on from its norm was con­side­red an exis­ten­ti­al thre­at, the birth of a black child must have been a poli­ti­cal issue.«Ines Johnson-Spain

It’s the start of the 1960s in the GDR: Sigrid, from Leipzig, falls in love with Lucien, a stu­dent from Togo, and gets pregnant. But she’s mar­ried to Armin, and they alre­a­dy have a son tog­e­ther. The cou­ple let their dark-skin­ned daugh­ter belie­ve that her skin colour is a coin­ci­dence and not signi­fi­cant, until she dis­co­vers the truth by chan­ce as a teen­ager. Decades later, long after she has met her bio­lo­gi­cal father’s fami­ly in Togo, she recon­s­tructs her fami­ly histo­ry in a film as both prot­ago­nist and aut­hor. In emo­tio­nal and open con­ver­sa­ti­ons with her ste­pf­a­ther Armin, the atmo­sphe­re of silence and sup­pres­si­on is very much in evi­dence. It slow­ly beco­mes clear how the social milieu has to be struc­tu­red in order to make such a major deni­al of facts possible.Here too, pri­va­te mat­ters are poli­ti­cal. In an inti­ma­te explo­ra­ti­on of her own iden­ti­ty, Ines Johnson-Spain traces the taboo topic overs­ha­dowing her child­hood and in doing so also expo­ses an under­ly­ing racism resi­ding in the GDR. In the con­text of the tou­ch­ing encoun­ter with her Togolese fami­ly whom she dis­co­ver­ed so late in her life, the film beco­mes a reflec­tion on iden­ti­ty, fami­ly con­cepts and social norms. From the 1960s in East Berlin to the pre­sent day, this inti­ma­te, moving self-por­trait reve­als a wise and hither­to unwrit­ten German story.

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DE 2019, 91 Min.,
Buch & Regie: Ines Johnson-Spain
Kamera: Sebastian Winkels, Anne Misselwitz
Schnitt: Yana Höhnerbach

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