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In Handel's oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (1707), the desire to live is at odds with the realisation of one's own mortality. In his early masterpiece, the composer was able to open up clear emotional spaces to the simultaneity of the incompatible. What does it mean to be alive - and what does it mean to demand to be fulfilled with this life? And who am I when the mirror only gazes at me in silence? In Handel's music the questions begin to float.

Who hasn't seen the great DEFA classics "Alfons Zitterbacke" or "Nackt unter Wölfen"? In Filmland Thuringia, director Bernd Sahling visits the film locations in Thuringia and tells the stories behind the scenes.

The film combines a scene taken from the movie Copycat (1995) with footage of my editing the film. It is a reflection on the idea of artistic originality as well as the art world’s constant desire to instantly transform everything—even the current health crisis—into works of art.

The Vatican opened once-secret records on Pope Pius XII on March 2020. This gave researchers a brand new insight into the Catholic Church during the Nazi era. What did the Pope know about the Holocaust?

It’s about the state of being in-between. The decision to grow old or continue to be a child - the transformation from girl to woman.

Using black-and-white images ranging from African statues to contemporary film posters and political meetings, Chihying considers aesthetic dynamics between the West, China and Africa. How did so many African artefacts end up in European museums? And what if this Western power of selection were replaced by Chinese control?

Criminal commissioner Hagen Walsken investigates the missing Anna Padberg, who fell into the hands of an insane clown. Only one woman survived this clown several years ago and has been silent in an institution since then. Hagen tries to question her anyway. But the chaos breaks out when the clown finds out where his former victim is now. Now he's more deadly than ever. But Anna remains missing.

Part 4 of the Bethanien Tetralogy.

The elite soldier of the Supermegaforce Erwin Braddog is sent on his most dangerous mission yet. In the fight against his arch-enemy James Lee, he lands in the future through a cleverly used time jump and must fight his way through the city of Möllenhafen, which is occupied by crow people and ninjas. But he is assisted by the old general Gio Pescie and his niece Käthe Pescie. Together, the three concoct an insidious plan, with the help of the now retired Martin Lee, to find his son James and bring him to justice. Because Braddog is primarily about one thing: revenge and retribution by any means! Is there an escape from the horrible future hell?!

A sparse room with a single power plug. The jewel: a copy machine. Leather, metal, fur. A place where you don‘t sit squarely at a table with flowers and a salt shaker, but where you explore all dimensions of the space. Unwielding forms. Between 1981 and 1996, the lesbian-run „Pelze Multimedia“ in West Berlin was a beloved and notorious venue for experimental art and music, for sex parties, bar nights and avant-garde fashion shows staged on a scaffolding. Interviews with three of the showrunners are intertwined with private archive materials. SUBJECT SPACES explores the memory of a subculture, the question of feminist heritage and an aesthetic practice that stood in stark contrast to large parts of the women‘s movement at the time.

Listening to people before they are no longer here to tell the story of their era. The filmmakers interviewed contemporary witnesses who recount their experiences before, during, and after World War II. Two of them travel to their hometown in Upper Silesia for this purpose.

During the 1980s, the transcript of a witch trial was found in the archive of a family property in south-west Germany. "Plant (879 pages, 33 days)" unfolds a conversation between mother and daughter that switches between historical facts and personal memories of the site.

In this film, the three authors Sabine Bohland, Shafagh Laghai and Caroline Hoffmann talk about surprising everyday encounters on their travels through very different African countries. In doing so, they dispel one or two clichés and look at the often misunderstood continent from a completely different angle. After all, who would have thought that one of the best goudas could be found in war-torn eastern Congo?

Katharina’s father used to work for the GDR secret service. In the mid-1990s he was arrested for a murder ordered in connection with his former job … and released. Ever since then, Katharina has feared that the doubts about her father’s innocence might throw a shadow on her life, too. A film about family secrets and the question whether some things hadn’t better remain hidden.

The "liquefaction of the liquid" is taken to such extremes that as soon as the guttural singing of Mopcut begins, the image space is overcome with spectral flutters and untenable fluctuations.

Two of us by Irena Paskali

Our Brabus documentary accompanies the complex tuning process of a Mercedes G and Mercedes S class. In the Brabus main plant in Bottrop Germany, all Daimler vehicles have been spruced up according to customer requirements for more than 50 years. Around 450 employees tune current Mercedes models and breathe new life into iconic classic cars from the 1960s and 1970s. The business with individual cars is international - around 90 percent of the vehicles that are produced here are exported.

A short movie about dreams and the personalities we become in an unknown world where everything is possible.

How can we visualize Body Ownership? We connected Body Ownership with an I-perspective, looking for images that uncover the multiplicity of the ‘I’ First person plural. Strapping two body cameras (GoPros) to our chests, we move in direct body contact. Our premise is that both I-perspectives of the cameras are at interplay with each other, showing that gaze is never produced by a singular entity. Instead, it is the result of bodies touching and reacting constantly to each other. The body cameras are joined by an external camera – a third-person perspective. While it may hold a position of power as the one who frames the image from the outside, it desires to dive into the collective I-perspective. BE-LONGING. At one point the gazes of the I-perspectives and the outside camera meet – they look at each other looking. Gazes conjoined with bodies. Body is spatiosocially bound, is situated.

Shooting requires the shooter to completely immerse herself in the present. Death appears to her as a great sleep. She seems anchorless. But in the morning hours, she finds her way back to the woman closest to her.

Aram and Mihemed are two teenage brothers who struggle to earn a living for the family. The boys cruise the streets of Kurdish capital, Arbil in Iraq.

After their graduation, Anne, Efy, Elisabeth, Johannes, and Kaupo get their motorcycle licenses and set off on four old rusty Ural 650 sidecar motorcycles, travelling eastward from Germany to New York City. When plans collapse things start to get interesting. Roads dissolve into deserts, swamps, and rivers until they reach the 80 kilometres of open sea separating Russia from Alaska, the Bering Strait. Their unreliable motorcycles suffer ongoing breakdowns and the raw and rugged terrain throws them the most unrelenting difficult challenges. Equipped with no more than naivety and persistence they somehow make their way through the most isolated corners of the world. After 20,000 km of breakdowns, all roads end and the only way to get closer to the Bering Strait is by The Kolyma, a remote 1,600 km long river. To cross it, the group build an amphibious motorcycle rig that will lead them closer to Bering Strait.

What is a community? The people does not exist in and of itself. I think we are all quite alone today. What do groups cohere around? Are there other possibilities for living?

For several years, the film team has accompanied Paul, now 12 years old, on his way to and through primary school. This would be nothing special if he did not have trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). Nevertheless, he is part of the community and is fully accepted by his classmates.

In a kaleidoscopic sequence, images search freely for stories that shape lives — faith, patriotism, anarchism, tourism, returns and arrivals, sketches of daily life and nature. Like a photo book, the film creates new images and relationships between shots, reassembling a journey of impressions where the outlines of the world oscillate. Filmed in Poland, Germany, Portugal, Greece and Brasil. Shot in 16 mm, in seven chapters. [Punto de Vista]

Lady Midday watches over the midday calm and, at the same time, the cycle of nature: growth and decay.

Is it possible to live a more peaceful and creative life on our planet? In a time when the state of the planet poses important questions: What is life worth to us? And what do we still consider sacred? These questions inspired the Director to meet the Indian mystic, philosopher and grassroots activist Vimala Thakar (1921 – 2009). It was an encounter that deeply inspired and changed her life. Almost twenty years later, she researches the profound work of this fascinating woman again in the context of our time, and translates her urgent call for holistic thinking and action into a cinematic work of art.

When is it OK to not put your health first? This documentary examines questions of well-being and the ways people prioritize their fundamental values.

Normally, you would drink a bottle of wine with your friends or family. Assuming you drink at all. But during the Corona confinement, nothing is normal. So a young animator drinks the bottle alone by herself and animates a movie.

A girl is being haunted by the ghost of a chatroom.

In a park, sex worker Nadim meets Oliver, a client, and goes home with him. Once there, the two have unspectacular sex. Only when a misunderstanding leads to a brawl and both are confronted with unexpected desires and needs do they really get closer to each other and realise how similar they actually are.

"Public Domain" is a short film we shot in honor of those who support us with daily entertainment throughout this apocalypse. It's a love letter to cinema and a call to arms. Don't let the medium die.

A guy jogs at night listening to a “how-to-pick-up-girls” tutorial. Trying to improve his game. Suddenly a girl appears right in front of him also jogging. Perfect moment to use the tips from the tutorial. If only the girl wasn’t running away all the time… but wait – why is she running at all?

For most of our history, the ocean has been regarded as, if not a barrier, an adversary: something to be simultaneously exploited and feared. Ingo Niermann asks us to rethink our response to the fearful oceans, in hope of finding its hidden soul and reaching an understanding with it. In Sea Lovers Niermann offers us a whole chest of new models for reading, touching and feeling the sea. As the seaside theme parks of the early 20th century offered us a safe encounter with the novel and unsettling technologies of the age, could an underwater amusement park allow us closer interpersonal connection with other lifeforms? And just as the domestication of animals into emotional and affective companions made the forests ‘safe’ for our comprehension, could dolphins or cephalopods become our guides to the watery depths that were once our home? Could the salty touch of the ocean itself soften us towards accepting its wild and all-encompassing embrace?

Where can we get together? Set in the midst of a societal crisis, Lucid Dreams is a six-minute Greek epic from a second-person point of view about democracy, the importance of human connection, and the capability of change.

Dazzling colors and imaginative imagery: This music video conveys a feeling we all know too well: “ I want to go home.”

Fun about bloggers and influencers.

Noah and Leopold are a couple for three months and head over heels in love. Only bad thing is that Noah has forgotten about something very important. He turns the need into a virtue and lets his boyfriend's heart melt away by a proof of trust.

TV documentary film about what work situations in modern, but widely struggeling to get by - Germany. It's all about how much work is worth today.

The flesh of time, strands of the present, in constant becoming and disappearance. One reel for each season, exposed between 2016 and 2017. Leitmotifs of flora, providing some unity within each season, as a reflection on ist atmosphere and passing presence.