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An homage to Francis Bacon and Georg Baselitz.

Short film directed by Yara Khalil about her Kurdish roots.

In April 1994, the parents of two-year-old Samuel Ishimwe were murdered in Rwanda. Their fate was shared by up to a million people in the genocide against the country’s Tutsi minority. Thirty years on, Samuel sets out to discover what set these terrible events in motion.

After the death of his father, Kurt, filmmaker Karsten Weber rummages through memories: family photos, leaflets, found objects. A look back at a life marked by political activism, especially in protesting nuclear power and rearmament. “He was first environmentalist I knew”, says Weber. Sound recordings from the past, and grainy film images from the present, create a cinematic monument to the deceased.

What do sourdough bread, old faded pictures and Donald Trump have in common? All three revive a feeling as old as the world, but still potent: nostalgia. Multifaceted, personal or collective, poetic or reactionary, nostalgia is a complex emotional state.

A man embarks on a noisy trip into his past.

Counterfeit drugs and dubious pharmaceutical representatives, plus a dead body in Steinacher Ried: doctors and pharmacists in Bad Waldsee are in turmoil. A woman from Constance, whose husband is on his way to Bad Waldsee in a sports plane and is in danger of crashing, uncovers a bitter secret. Inspector August Häberle and his team encounter some very strange people in tranquil Bad Waldsee.

LFM comments on the distortions in the image of women and the food cycle in the pulse of the Berlin metropolis: The female protagonist is transformed from a suburbanite in a big-city photo studio into a mythical warrior exuding primal energy for an avant-garde photo session. The film details the power and resources of the fashion world to shape the very real image of women. LFM culminates in a surprising juxtaposition of worlds as the protagonist hunts for sustenance on the obscure frontiers of society.

In April 1994, the parents of two-year-old Samuel Ishimwe were murdered in Rwanda. Like them, up to one million people died in the genocide against the Tutsi minority. 30 years later, Samuel wants to know how this could have happened.

The Interview uses VR to put you in the role of a caseworker in an immigration office. You will interview asylum seekers. At the end of each interview, it is your job to decide who can stay and who should be asked to return to his/her country of origin. How easy is it to make that decision when the person is sitting in front of you?

Answers are required, will they be given?

A chapter of a young man's life

A performative poetry film about what nobody will want to have seen. Childish paper dolls and tableaus, collage aestheticsm juxtaposed with symbols of war, politics, and religion. Ideologies and opinions tried on as one would try on clothes. A poem hinting at the Leningrad siege. The colors of the suffragettes, Aileen Wuornos’ glorification, and glorious landscapes combined with Nazi uniforms. Nothing is innocent.

A short film exploring memorialization and continuities of racism from DDR.

As she walks alone through the streets of a big city, a young woman experiences an unexpected and unsettling encounter that puts her in great danger. Her escape becomes a poignant reflection on fear and the silent dangers women face in everyday life.

The Grim Reaper wants to retire. We know how that goes: you have to meet the final deadlines and train your successor. A short intimate play about life, death and the fact that things can always get worse.

For Alex, the sea is a special place that she really wants to see. When it becomes clear that she won't be able to leave her village for a while, she makes a decision: she goes to the sea on her own with her girlfriend.

A short film about a man experiencing a sudden episode while driving back to his house.

While making a film about Berlin's housing crisis, Rory Ryder stumbles upon a forgotten East German building that just might be a groundbreaking solution for emergency housing worldwide.

It is midnight. A man wants to eat a boiled egg, but the salt shaker is empty. In search of supplies, he finds a mysterious packet of salt in the kitchen cupboard. When the man sprinkles it on the egg, he unleashes a sinister force.

Cécile McLorin Salvant has been described as ‘the heiress of Billie Holiday’. When she sings, it's as if time and space disappear, with a modern-day voice reviving the soul of ‘Lady Day’. Winning award after award, this Franco-American singer is now one of the leading figures in jazz today.

AGRIS is a documentary short film that takes a look at the winter fields of a community-supported agriculture. It observes the atmosphere, structures and materialities of the place and the work carried out there by the gardeners.

“KulturBahnhof” – this title has been carried by Kassel Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) since 1995. Over the years, it has become home to many cultural workers and creatives. Galleries, studios, rehearsal rooms, music clubs, an arthouse cinema, and the Offene Kanal (Public Access TV) are all located here. Between abandoned train tracks and old industrial buildings, important venues of the city’s cultural life emerged. However, by the end of 2023, many of these alternative and subversive institutions were forced to close. Deutsche Bahn increased rents and sent out eviction notices, citing plans to build a new operations center. To make a statement against this development, a group from Piraten Kanal Kassel organized a performative takeover of the station on New Year’s Eve. The film shows live performances that took place in the station hall, at Franz Ulrich, and in Stellwerk, combining them with small portraits and clips about the now vanished creative spaces.

Since the 1992 Olympics, tourism in Barcelona has exploded and continues to grow. Currently, there are frequent demonstrations by locals and throughout the city, you can read the slogan “Tourists go home.”

Paradise is our earth. It is located in the midst of the impressive nature and rich biodiversity of Kenya. An experimental film tells the story of Adam and Eve's earthly return to paradise with the help of a small wooden garden house that falls from the sky. Inside are two urns containing the ashes of the two bodies of the couple, who loved each other unconditionally and lived happily together in Kenya for half a century until they died together.

A dimly lit, scarcely furnished flat, the hissing and buzzing of an open microphone. What follows is an argument in Arabic between mother and son. She complains about his lethargy. He sees no point in school while the country is at war. At last, the boy sets out through the busy streets of his neighbourhood which is a chaotic patchwork of everyday life and the debris of war.

The world stands still. Gaudily painted cruise ships lie in the oil port of Augusta on the south-east coast of Sicily. Their lustre fades a little more every day. On the scorched, tinged 16mm film stock they seem as unfit for the future as the refineries visible behind them. When, if not in the early summer of 2021, would the time have ever been riper for reflection and reassessment?! Old, exploitative economic systems that keep people away from Europe and let only raw materials enter are in lockdown. Their future is unimaginable. But is there a way back? To the gentle sound of the waves, the birds and the insects, the smoke of the industrial plants wafts back into the chimneys. But the images have been damaged.

Geology, animals and the human path flow into this subjective portrait of Portuguese landscapes. Between 2018 and 2023, the director came across different regions and places in this country, either alone or with a group of artists and eco-activists. The footage was shot on the fringes of these groups’ work and activities, reflecting and revealing themes such as nature conservation, ethnography, agriculture or actions against gentrification. The rhythm of Pedras Instáveis is determined by the Bolex camera, but it is slower and contemplative, aligning with the contemporary idea of slowing down.

A visualisation of the urban legend about the "Well to Hell"

In the style of a documentary, the film follows the meticulous research of the Interstellar Zoologists Society as it explores the diverse and fascinating creatures of the planet Tardi. Through stunning imagery and scientific explanations, the documentary offers an in-depth look at alien species, their habitats, and the challenges of studying life beyond Earth.

Machines work the countryside, birds fly over the fields and robots imitate human movements. Ornithologists and cutting-edge robotics make for an unlikely yet fruitful encounter, as the artist Sandra Schäfer questions post-humanist modes of production. What will the relationship between nature and culture look like in the future?

The Drachenfels, a 321-meter mountain along the Rhine, is one of Europe’s most climbed peaks and a significant symbol of technological progress and nature conservation in Germany. It became a focal point of Rhine Romanticism in the 19th century, inspiring art and legends, particularly the tale of a dragon. The nearby city of Königswinter thrives on tourism, which began with English visitors in the early 19th century and was boosted by the introduction of Germany's first cogwheel railway. The fairy-tale-like Drachenburg castle, built in 1884 and recently renovated, is a major attraction. Filmmakers Clemens Gersch and Michael Wieseler document their ascent of the Drachenfels, meeting a 90-year-old photographer and a local tour guide, while also exploring the unique "Guerilla wine" produced in the area.

In the Lisu community in the mountains of Myanmar, the mellifluous voice of a shaman evokes the lost souls of his community.

Animated short film based on motifs from the opera PARSIFAL by Richard Wagner. The film deals with power and gender structures that use a religious context as a pretext. Wagner's work is critically examined and re-evaluated from a very personal perspective. This is done in an entertaining way that does not shy away from a popular and allusive form. The newly composed music by Nico Gaik takes up the most important leitmotifs of Wagner's opera and at the same time makes a tongue-in-cheek reference to the popular sound of big Holywood blockbusters.

A young man makes all decisions to his life's difficult questions with the toss of a coin. Because of this, his girlfriend breaks up with him and he starts a journey into the mountains to flee from his problems. But you cannot flee from your own conscience.

Life In The Shadowlands is an autobiographical short film about getting sick with the disabling neuroimmune illness ME/CFS, from the perspective of a young Norwegian artist living in Berlin. While being confined largely to her bed, the narrator gives insight into her journey of finding sanctuary in art and seeking purpose in life, while delving into topics of women's health, witch-hunts, queerness and otherness.

Midnight. The moon is shining and the night is feverish in the colorful queer club. An injured Black transmasculine pole dancer is interrupted in his performance preparations by mysterious phone calls. Fear of rejection has prevented him from saying who he really is, and kept him away from everything. What if tonight, the magic of his pole offered him the chance to reconnect with the people he loves, and reveal his full radiance?

les microbes is based on stories told by members of the film crew during the making of the film and deals with their situation in an experimental way. They had to flee their homeland due to poverty, war and persecution. Now, after their long journey, they have to persevere and wait. Waiting while the world turns faster and faster.

The sun shines over the city squares, but many remain unkissed. Here, everyday life is barren and precarious - economic wealth elsewhere. The film embarks on a journey to 16 disadvantaged neighborhoods in Germany and visits projects that use artistic and cultural interventions to combat deprivation. With music, theater and intercultural dialogues to create strong neighborhoods. What can subsidized socioculture and performative-artistic practice achieve in cities characterized by high rents and dwindling public infrastructure? Where are these humane counterpoints able to transcend the endured, less and less scandalized social poverty and concrete normality in the direction of social diversity and the opening up of new scope? Art and culture as an extinguishing fire department in social hotspots or as active solidarity for the utopia of the polis.

A surreal take on two people longing to bond through movement. The setting is a bygone velodrome, the Albert Richter track in Cologne. Without words, VELODROME evokes a poetic and eerie liminal space. It portrays a pursuit of communication, a permanent interruption. A moment of encounter without meeting.

Chris lives with his buddy Alex at a suburban train station, cared for by his neighbors. A heroin addiction determines his everyday life and it seems impossible for him to free himself from this vicious circle. When he becomes increasingly worse and only just escapes death, he decides that he has to get off the streets and off heroin. But where to? How can a young man find his place in our society, even though he hasn't fitted in - or wanted to fit in - anywhere since childhood?

Alice grew up in Cologne during the Second World War. She had to flee her homeland with her siblings, mother and grandmother. They found refuge in Saxon Switzerland. After Germany's capitulation, they made their way back to Cologne as quickly as possible. The Cologne way - Zo Fooß. Lilli now retraces the journey of around 800 km that they made back then, following in the footsteps of their ancestors and delving into their stories. This journey serves as the framework for a story which, through encounters with the past and a rapprochement between generations, offers an opportunity to approach one another and enter into dialog.

My mother, Carol Frieda Herman P. Hirsch, Chaya bas Moshe ve Yehudit, died on June 23, 2022, at home, the way she wanted her last weeks to be. Self-determined, surrounded by majestic trees outside the windows, with birds chirping in the background. With her books in shelves nearby. Even when she lacked the energy to read, she was glad to have those books near her. And she enjoyed the smells of good food, her music and other simple things as long as it was possible. The choice to use film material that was way past its sell-by date corresponds with how, as one approaches the end of one’s life, things fall apart, gradually. A tribute.

Dutch artist melanie bonajo does ongoing research into the current state of intimacy in a world where capitalism has penetrated deep into the personal sphere and where everything can be commodified.