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Die Jahrhundertflut

After several days of rainfall, the watchword in wide parts of Bavaria in early June 2013 is: Land submerged! Within the shortest time, the flood catastrophe is taking its course: The regions around Kolbermoor, Deggendorf, and Passau are the hot spots. For the local population, these are dramatic days of hope and fear, for the aid workers it means work around the clock. In those days, Bavaria closed the ranks: Volunteers from all regions come in order to lend a hand and help. The Bayerische Fernsehen commemorates the dramatic days and weeks in the early summer of 2013 with the documentary “Die Jahrhundertflut” (“The flood of the century”).

Die Jahrhundertflut

NR 2014
Berlinized

The documentary BERLINIZED describes this very Berlin-specific attitude in a reflection on and a journey to mid-1990s' Berlin. Filmmaker Lucian Busse, an active protagonist of the period, documents the transformation of Berlin after the Wall. But Berlinized represents more than just the 1990s - it is a metaphor for this virally catching creative feeling, the slightly rough directness, spiced up with a big dash of typical Berlin humor. Berlinized lets the former protagonists reflect how that temporary feeling of freedom shaped their individual lives, and to what degree that freedom can still be found among the neat order of today's Berlin. These reflections are as diverse as the interviewees and as multifaceted as the changes in those times.

Berlinized

6.0 2012
Good News: Newspaper Salesmen, Dead Dogs and Other People from Vienna

This documentary, Ulrich Seidl's full-length film debut, examines the lives of the street newspaper sellers in Vienna, a mixture of men from Turkey, India, Pakistan, Egypt and Eastern Europe, standing out in all weathers, peddling the trivial Viennese tabloids. We see their lives on the street, their cramped living quarters, their minders, the 'training' days, and the inhumane process which keeps them working endless hour for little reward.

Good News: Newspaper Salesmen, Dead Dogs and Other People from Vienna

6.7 1990
Helgoland - Insel im Sturm

Over a period of two years, Robert Morgenstern and his team captured the atmosphere and stories of Helgoland and woven them into a portrait of the island and its inhabitants. The primordial elements and moods, swarming water masses, the powerful play of colors of the sunset red, the vastness of the starry sky above the flashing lighthouse and the rustle of the flocks of birds at night give Helgoland a very special magic. Through slow-moon and time-lapse shots, this rhythm of the island becomes alive and vivid in this film. The special perspectives and animal shots in the first work by Robert Morgenstern trace the diversity and special features of the red island and also provide fascinating insights into the work of the ordianists.

Helgoland - Insel im Sturm

NR 2009
Unten

The documentary filmmaker Djordje Cenic sets out on an autobiographical journey that starts in the "guest workers' milieu" of the Austrian regional capital Linz in the 1970s and takes him to his family's war-torn ancestral village in Croatia. In comically absurd as well as tragic episodes describing small victories and major defeats, homesickness and class distinctions, the film offers - using home movies, photographs and current professional footage - deep insights into the filmmaker's family history. It is an attempt to illustrate the balancing act between "up here" (Austria) and "down there" (Yugoslavia/Croatia) that characterizes generations of guest workers. Directed by Djordje Cenic and Hermann Peseckas. - Written by Djordje Cenic

Unten

6.0 2016
Looking for Cesária Évora

Cesária Évora made the music of the Cape Verde islands famous throughout the world in the early 1990s. This film is an introduction to the culture, music and zest for life of the Cape Verdean people. On the occasion of the famous carnival of Mindelno, on the island of São Vicente where Cesaria Évora was born, this documentary offers a musical journey to discover "Sodade" and its legacy. Cesaria Évora, who died in 2011 after a twenty-year career, has allowed Cape Verde to shine throughout the world. The "barefoot diva", considered the queen of the morna has conquered the world and inspired many Cape Verdean artists. The small archipelago, which was for several centuries an important hub of the slave trade has promoted since then an important ethnic mix, which has played an important role in the evolution of local music.

Looking for Cesária Évora

6.0 2019
Berlin Symphony

The documentary film describes a day in the big city of Berlin and is based on Walter Ruttmann's 1927 black-and-white silent film Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt, which also depicts a day in the big city of Berlin with musical accompaniment. As with Ruttmann, Schadt's film is also based on the tension curve of a symphony, although it is much flatter here. The spirit of optimism and hectic pace of the 1920s, which dominate the rhythm of its predecessor, have largely given way to a certain melancholy. The film reinterprets Ruttman's approach and shows the ruptures and wounds that Berlin suffered both socially and in the cityscape as a result of the war and the years that followed.

Berlin Symphony

6.0 2002
Power Outage - How safe is our grid?

The Synchronous grid of Continental Europe provides the highest level of service security world wide. Nevertheless, experts are voicing their concerns over risks that could push the european grid over the edge. The exit from nuclear- and fossil fuel energy, rising consumption, climate change and an increasingly liberalized electricity market are, next to cyber attacks, serious threats that need to be addressed. Do we need to prepare for severe power outages and blackouts?

Power Outage - How safe is our grid?

NR 2017
So Why Make a Film About These People?

"This was my first student documentary. I shot it over the Easter vacation in 1980 on 16mm, black-and-white reversal film. Apart from two five-minute exercises, it was destined to be the only film I ever finished at the College of Film and Television of the German Democratic Republic (Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR, HFF) in East Germany’s Potsdam-Babelsberg. It was quickly banned from being shown publicly and it remained in storage until the end of 1989. The film tells the story of a mother and her sons having coffee and cake while they try to remember –in vain– when the first time was that they tangled with the police. The reason it was banned was the casual way the film portrayed those young men living their lives untouched by ideology, including taking their careers as petty criminals for granted, meaning the film’s author accepted their existence, as is, and simply wanted to explore it.”

So Why Make a Film About These People?

7.0 1980
Power to Change

Is it possible for the entire world to switch to decentralized and renewable energy sources by 2030? In this inspiring documentary, we meet with German politicians, scientists, farmers, social workers, activists and visionaries who say yes, and who all push forward for a global change in climate by changing the local power supply sources to renewable energy. Director Carl-A. Fechner is not ready to give up on our planet just yet, and POWER TO CHANGE is a welcome antidote to the pessimism that defines our era's visions of the future.

Power to Change

7.5 2016
Otto Dix: The Painter is the Eyes of the World

This is the first documentary to illuminate Neue Sachlichkeit against the backdrop of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. Dix’s works—including the key Metropolis triptych (1928–29), the great psychological portraits, and, last but not least, the landscapes with their hidden symbolism, painted during the years he spent at Lake Constance—form the starting point for this exploration of his oeuvre. They are placed in a context with works of art by George Grosz, Rudolf Schlichter, and Christian Schad, creating a new perspective on this crucial chapter in German art history.

Otto Dix: The Painter is the Eyes of the World

6.0 1989
Darkening

A visually arresting interactive exploration of a space that represents the recesses of the mind and soul, lost in the dips of depressive and anxious states. The autobiographical narrative is a composition of fragments of stories and descriptions of inner turmoil, drawing the audience into an elaborate world of sometimes illustrative, sometimes metaphorical animations and ingenious sound design to understand the causes and experience of depression, the struggle to break out of its darkness, and the feelings of futility and heaviness. Open, almost diaristically intimate notes navigate the journey through rooms, floors and different environments that embody the manifestations of inner heaviness.

Darkening

NR 2022