Documentary movies

Two villages in two nations are contrasted with each other. Two people live here: the maternal grandmother and the paternal grandfather talk a lot, but not with each other.

Anna Zett collages mostly unreleased footage from the Berlin Archive of the GDR-Opposition into a pulsating short film thriller. The film opens up an associative realm which allows for the re-evaluation of experiences of violence hard to access today.

Amine Diare Conde fled from Guinea to Europe at the age of fifteen. His voluntary work makes the 22-year-old the best-known asylum seeker in Switzerland.

The story of one of the biggest media scandals of our time is an epic thriller about deception and psychological manipulation in a world where integrity and credibility are everything – but where the art of telling a good story sometimes weighs heaviest.

A poetic exploration of a German myth – the forest. As if in trance, the camera′s gaze glides over tunnel-like avenues of woodland monocultures, leading the viewer through green spaces created by humankind, ensnarling itself in the chaotic structures of primeval forests and eventually finding its way out via an artificial clearing.

In the essay film "HAMMERBROOK BLUES" Louis Fried goes in search of traces in the Hamburg district of Hammerbrook. An area in whose appearance war and Nazi rule are inscribed to this day. Between wasteland and reconstruction, memorials and urban planning, he encounters his own family history.

Hans Jürgen Syberberg grew up in the town of Demmin, the subject of his current film. The history of the town, in which a mass suicide with hundreds of deaths took place at the end of the Second World War, plays an important role. In his film, Syberberg documents his attempts, initiated decades ago, to re-establish Demmin's central market square as a place of community. A café was revived where people could watch films, drink coffee and sing together. Two architectural firms even presented concrete plans for a redesign of the square. Syberberg's commitment is not intended to restore "old conditions", but to give a place and a community back its lost center.

10.35 p.m. – the start of the night shift at the University Hospital in Zurich. We accompany a midwife who, during her long and intense shift, empathetically helps the mothers and babies under her watch, taking into account all their individual differences.

Simone Müller puts on her self-made traditional Cheyenne outfit. She tells us about her longing to visit the Western United States. We join her in a get-together with fellow hobbyists as they gather around the fireplace of a tipi in their suburb garden to get lost in play. Yara, an internationally successful western rider from the Ruhr, dresses in her sequined golden show outfit before training with her appaloosa mare Casey. She tells us about her passion for Texas, where everything seems to be a little larger than life. We sit beside Kevin Derwahl, better known by his nickname “Johnson”, as he rides his wartime Jeep through the Belgian Ardennes and pay visit to a stretch of forest that saw heavy fighting during of the Battle of the Bulge. What they all share, beside their passion for America, is the notion that all this is not necessarily about a worldly place…

Clowns are more than jesters; they hold a mirror up to society. They move between the worlds and like to break rules, albeit with a wink. At the same time, clowns are contradiction experts by nature, because they know on the one hand that life is far too short to be sad, and on the other hand use their art not only to entertain us but to make oppression and violence visible and attackable.

The deadliest refugee route in the world claims thousands of lives every year. In the first half of 2023 alone, almost 2,000 people died in the Mediterranean because the European Union’s border policy systematically violates existing laws. Instead of helping shipwrecked persons, Frontex practices illegal pushbacks, finances the violent operations of the Libyan coast guard and takes massive action against private sea rescue missions that act where the EU fails. All this has been documented in the media and yet remains incomprehensible to all who were never forced to live through this situation themselves: How can one deny assistance to hundreds of people in peril of life, even threaten and criminalise the civilian helpers?

Only in exile can Uyghurs from the Chinese province of Xingjang still live out their culture. A struggle against oblivion and loss of identity.

At the age of 38, Silvia Mittermüller is still one of the best German snowboarders. It seems as if her career is coming to an end, but the athlete is is struggling to leave the spotlight.