A film by Klára Tasovská. In Czech with German subtitles.

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Libuše Jarcovjáková docu­ments her life with ana­lo­gue pho­tos and dia­ry ent­ries. Her Czechoslovakian home­land is in the repres­si­ve pha­se of “nor­ma­li­sa­ti­on” after the sup­pres­si­on of the Prague Spring in 1968. The young pho­to­grapher sear­ches for islands of free­dom in Prague as well as her sexu­al iden­ti­ty; her came­ra is her con­stant com­pa­n­ion. One of the­se islands is the T‑Club, a mee­ting place for the que­er sce­ne. When a mur­der is com­mit­ted and the poli­ce beco­me inte­res­ted in Libuše’s pho­tos from the club, her per­so­nal jour­ney of eman­ci­pa­ti­on is abrupt­ly cut short. She enters into a mar­ria­ge of con­ve­ni­ence and moves to West Berlin. But this new world is also fil­led with obs­ta­cles. Using the last of her money, she flies to Tokyo and, for a short time, beco­mes a sought-after fashion pho­to­grapher the­re. Continuing to search for the life she wants to live, Libuše’s path leads her back to Prague via Berlin after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Using only pho­to­graphs and the dia­ry ent­ries she reads out hers­elf, the artist – tog­e­ther with the film­ma­ker – inti­m­ate­ly rela­tes her search for iden­ti­ty, ever­y­day strug­gles, phy­si­cal­i­ty, rela­ti­onships and emotions

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Ještě nej­sem, kým chci být
CZ/SK/AU 2024, 90 Min., tsche­chi­sche Originalfassung mit deut­schen Untertiteln
Regie: Klára Tasovská
Schnitt: Alexander Kashcheev

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A film by Jesse Eisenberg. In English with German subtitles.

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A Real Pain fol­lows mis­mat­ched cou­sins David and Benji who reu­ni­te for a tour through Poland to honor their bel­oved grand­mo­ther. The adven­ture takes a turn when the odd cou­ple’s old ten­si­ons resur­face against the back­drop of their fami­ly history.

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US/PL 2024, 90 Min., engl. OmU
Regie: Jesse Eisenberg
Kamera: Michael Dymak
Schnitt: Robert Nassau
mit Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes 

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A film by Alexander Horwath. In English and German with German and English subtitles.

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In 1980, two bio­gra­phies cross paths in a Paris cine­ma: tho­se of young cine­ma-goer Alexander Horwath and the actor Henry Fonda. Horwath reco­g­nis­ed ear­ly on that the popu­lar view of Fonda as a “typi­cal American” and the “con­sci­ence of the USA” in his acting roles doesn’t paint the full pic­tu­re. It is the more con­vo­lu­ted paths of Fonda’s bio­gra­phy and how he play­ed roles and embo­di­ed atti­tu­des exten­ding bey­ond indi­vi­du­al cha­rac­ters that tru­ly inte­rest Horwath. Thrillingly edi­ted with Michael Palm, his essay film fol­lows them across the histo­ry of film into an ima­gi­na­ry repu­blic of places, times, cha­rac­ters: “The United States of Fonda”. Fonda beco­mes the link bet­ween an old and a new America, the thoughtful face of the alle­ged tran­si­ti­on from the law of the jungle to civi­li­sa­ti­on as well as a cri­tic of an American self-image that only ser­ves its­elf. Paradoxically, it’s the magic of cine­ma invo­ked in the film that con­tri­bu­tes to this (self-)disenchantment of America via its own spe­ci­fic tech­ni­ques and the help of one of its grea­test magi­ci­ans. And in doing so crea­tes a won­derful­ly com­plex cine­ma­tic memo­ri­al to both the USA and sto­rytel­ler and actor Fonda – the pre­si­dent that never was.

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AT/DE 2024, 184 Min., engl./dt. Originalfassung mit deut­schen und eng­li­schen Untertiteln
Regie: Alexander Horwath
Kamera & Schnitt: Michael Palm

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A film by Désirée Nosbusch. Starts January 30th at the fsk. In English with German subtitles.

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Once mar­ried to each other, Lucas and Edith have been estran­ged for ten years, ever sin­ce Lucas left. At Edith’s request, they meet at the ceme­tery whe­re their only child is buried. During a long wait, their con­ver­sa­ti­on pro­gres­ses, revi­si­ting their shared past and rai­sing new pro­s­pects for their future. .

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LU/NL/GB 2024, 90 Min., engl. OmU
Regie: Désirée Nosbusch
Kamera: Judith Kaufmann
Schnitt: Michiel Reichwein
mit: Tim Roth, Trine Dyrholm

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Im Kino mit deut­schen Untertiteln.

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A film by Clint Eastwood. In English with German subtitles.

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Family man Justin Kemp who, while ser­ving as a juror in a high pro­fi­le mur­der tri­al, finds hims­elf strugg­ling with a serious moral dilemma…one he could use to sway the jury ver­dict and poten­ti­al­ly con­vict-or free-the wrong killer.

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US 2024, 114 Min., engl. OmU
Regie: Clint Eastwood
Kamera: Yves Bélanger
Schnitt: Joel Cox, David Cox
mit: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Zoey Deutch, Kiefer Sutherland, Francesca Eastwood, Chris Messina

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A film by Johan Grimonprez. In French and English with German subtitles

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Artist Johan Grimonprez’s new film essay stems from detail­ed rese­arch about some of the machi­na­ti­ons the Western colo­ni­al powers, such as his nati­ve Belgium or the US, came up with to under­mi­ne the African deco­lo­niza­ti­on move­ment. It spe­ci­fi­cal­ly reex­ami­nes the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire) and its strugg­le for inde­pen­dence in the con­text of the CIA’s histo­ry of arts patro­na­ge, tel­ling how the US Foreign Intelligence agen­cy sent Louis Armstrong as a jazz ambassa­dor to dis­tract from their invol­vement in the ass­as­si­na­ti­on of new­ly elec­ted Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Nina Simone was sent on a simi­lar tour of Nigeria by a CIA front orga­niza­ti­on, yet other jazz gre­ats got invol­ved less unwit­tingly. Dizzy Gillespie brief­ly ran for pre­si­dent in 1964 and pro­mi­sed that the White House would be ren­a­med the Blues House, while Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach cra­s­hed the UN Security Council to pro­test Lumumba’s ass­as­si­na­ti­on. Both a his­to­ri­cal pam­phlet and a swin­ging musi­cal com­po­si­ti­on, SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT unfolds like a record’s exten­si­ve slee­ve notes, as the jazz sounds pro­pel and car­ry along facts, figu­res and foot­no­tes of major and minor his­to­ries with them at diz­zy­ing speed. (Antoine Thirion)

Credits:

BE/FR/NL 2024, 150 Min., engl., frz. OmU, 

Regie: Johan Grimonprez, 

mit: Patrice Lumumba, Louis Armstrong, Andrée Blouin, Nina Simone, Nikita Krutschev, Eisenhower, Fidel Castro, Duke Elligton

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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

Trailer:

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