SPECIAL PROGRAMMES

A TV feature from “Klartext”, an East German programme, first broadcast on 9th November 1989 (!)

The Klartext programme may be called investigative, compared to East German standards at the time. This episode explores the question why the East German housing programme didn’t quite succeed as planned for Eberswalde and who’s responsible. Video footage shows the desolate city centre of Eberswalde in 1989 and scenes from a public meeting where local political figures have to face up to the people’s anger. All this makes the film an important historical document for Eberswalde.

A nature reserve near Rheinsberg is where the first German nuclear power station was located, called “a milestone in the history of our country’s power industry” at the time. What was once the pride of the region has now been dismantled step by step, beginning in 1995, by the very people who used to run the facility. Greenfield shows a site symbolic for a whole era’s beliefs, now suspended between a glorious past and an uncertain future.

Documentary Film, Germany, 2014, 15’, Director: Simon Ostermann, Original Soundtrack: German, Subtitles: English

Shot on the premises of a disused paper mill in Osinów Dolny, next to a German-Polish border crossing, the film shows a market which has existed on the former industrial site since 1992. We see a dialogue between two rooms of the building. Carefully composed 16mm footage fragments the layers of history encountered on the site and puts them together again.

Documentary Film, Germany, 2015, 20’, Director: Clara Bausch, Original Soundtrack: no Dialogue

Every fifth migrant living in Brandenburg state is older than 55 years. Coming from different parts of the world, they have joined the ranks of that ever-growing class we call the elderly. How do they see themselves, their situation and their experiences in their new homeland? Four very different people tell their stories of the foreign things they’ve found and the new roots they’ve taken in Brandenburg. The film shows their will to find a home, to live with those already there and to maintain their own identity. Those people’s lifelong experience can indeed help everyone, migrants or not, to understand more about life itself and about migration and integration.

Documentary film, Germany, 2014, 24’
by: Stefan Escher, Sascha Leeske, Tim Altrichter
Original Soundtrack: German

How do children and young people from Joachimsthal and its vicinity see their future? Are they planning to stay in the countryside or move to the city? The makers of this film project started out by framing and discussing questions and interviewing each other. This allowed them to express their own opinions in a famiiar setting and develop their photographing and interviewing skills. Having thus built competence and confidence, they met with a range of very different interview partners. The outcome is a short documentary film that captures different opinions and concepts of life in clear-cut pictures and also leaves room for a bit of humour.

Documentary film, Germany, 2015, 23‘, Original Soundtrack: German

A film project featuring children and young people from 10-18 years from Joachimsthal and its vicinity.
Project leader, writer-instructor and dramaturge: Oliver Hohlfeld
Camera teacher: Stefan Wachner
Creative assistant: Anke Müller

What is home, anyway? That was the question a number of young people asked themselves before they set out to find answers in filming. With unfettered perspective and unpresuming comment, they have created a kind of authenticity that provokes further thought. Their approach to the concept of home is embedded into a journey from the surroundings into the centre of Joachimsthal which gives their film a visual frame and emphasises the shared character of their experience. All images and sounds have been recorded and edited by the participants themselves.

Documentary film, Germany, 2015, 23‘, Original Soundtrack: German

A film project featuring children and young people from 10-18 years from Joachimsthal and its vicinity.
Project leader, writer-instructor and dramaturge: Oliver Hohlfeld
Camera teacher: Stefan Wachner
Creative assistant: Anke Müller

The story of a rooster who grew up among penguins and of love for one’s family and the motherland.

Animation film, Russia, Director: Andrey Sokolov, 2014, 13’25’’

„Children of Sodom“ shows one day in the lives of the two friends Oko and Kojo.

They are two of approximately 30.000 street children, who live around the electronic waste yard Agbogbloshi within Ghana‘s capital Accra. Most of the e-waste comes from the Western World.

Short Documentary Film, Germany, 2013, 15’00’’, Director: York-Fabian Raabe

Dji is a terribly unlucky death who doesn’t seem good at his job.

Animation Film, Moldava, 2014, 05’18’’, Director: Dmitri Voloshin

8-year-old Emma has run away from a children’s home and thinks she has found the perfect hiding place in Evelyn’s flat. Evelyn is blind, so Emma won’t be seen. But the noise Emma makes doesn’t go unnoticed. Evelyn plays along, a silent game of hide and seek between the two flatmates, which makes her finally see the world through Emma’s childlike eyes.

Short Feature Film, Switzerland, 2013, 20’00’’, Director: Maria Brendle

In order to be accepted as a man, young Ivan has to prove his courage by shooting a wolf. Which is not as easy as it seems because the wolf and Ivan like each other from the very start…

Animation Film, Germany, 2015, 04’58’’, Director: Anna Levinson

20-year-old Yusuf lives with his widowed mother on the outskirts of a small Anatolian town. They sell homemade dairy from their two cows on the local market. Sales are going down because industrialisation and new housing have spawned large supermarkets which pull away many of their customers. Zehra demands of Yusuf that he take up a regular job in order to keep the family. But Yusuf, lost in daydreams and literature, can’t live up to the traditional role he is expected to take on as head of the family. When a literary magazine publishes one of his poems, his desire for artistic fulfilment and recognition becomes overwhelming. Zehra, on her part, falls in love with the local station master, depriving Yusuf of his role as the only man in her life. Neither poems nor milk will help him in his situation. Should he follow the patterns of traditional patriarchal culture or search for his own view of life based on modern trends and lifestyle? The decisions involved are bound to change his life. When he gets drafted, he has to go to the city for medical examination. It is there that he meets Semra who shares his interest for poetry.

Turkey, 2008, 103’

Director: Semih Kaplanoğlu
Producer: Semih Kaplanoğlu
Screenplay: Semih Kaplanoğlu
Cinematography: Özgür Eken
Editing: François Quiqueré
Sound: Marc Nouyrigat
Music: Marc Nouyrigat
Cast: Melih Selçuk, Basak Köklükaya, Riza Akin, Saadet Isil Aksoy a.o.
Original soundtrack: Turkish
Subtitles: German

The people of Azerbaijan are proud of their country’s beauty – without really knowing what they’re talking about. They’ve never been to the primeval forests, have never seen the gazelles of Shirvan, never heard the mud volcanoes rumble. And while American stars run the show at the long-established Baku Jazz Festival, it is hardly remembered that Baku used to have its own musical scene which made it Soviet Russia’s Jazz capital.

Looking for inspiration, saxophone player Rain Sultanov travels to the seven different landscapes of Azerbaijan, accompanied by various fellow musicians. Under extreme conditions, they try to capture the spirit of the location, engage with the country folk’s way of living, improvise, turn pictures and sounds into musical sketches.

Documentary Film, Azerbaijan, 2014, 57’26’’

Director: Antje Dombrowsky
Producer: Thomas Melzer
Cinematography: Antje Dombrowsky
Editing: Antje Dombrowsky
Sound: Roman Strack
Music: Rain Sultanov
Original Soundtrack: Russian
Subtitles: English