Opening Films Short Documentary / Animation / Short Feature Film
Saturday, 1. October, 22pm
Làng Violon / Violin Farmers / Dorf der Violinen
Germany / 2016 / Documentary / 40 min
OT Vietnamese / UT English
Sixty years ago, a group of young farmers in a small village in the north-east of Vietnam fell in love with the sound of the violin and founded an orchestra. They passed on their passion for music to their sons, and the orchestra has continued to exist to this day, despite the hardships of war and continually arduous field labour. Làng Violon depicts a province that cultivates classical music as a matter of course, along with farming and breeding.
Director: Diem Ly Vu, Producer: Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Johannes Schmidt,
Script: Diem Ly Vu, DoP: Nico Mews,
Editor: Magdalena Mayer, Sound: Philipp Nespital, Tim Altrichter, Music: N/A
Ly Vu studied documentary direction at Hanoi Film Academy and worked as a scriptwriter for Vietnamese TV on the side. From 2009-10 she did research for Làng Violon in Germany. Today she lives and works in Hanoi.
Short Documentary / Animation Film 1
Sunday, 2. October, 20pm
Camrex
Britain, United Kingdom / 2015 / Documentary / 13 min
OT English / UT English
Camrex house is a hostel for homeless men in the English Midlands whose inhabitants hardly ever leave the building. Living right next door to each other, they gossip about their neighbours rather than talking to them. Each of them is trying to regain control of their lives and cope with the future. Director Mark Chapman has interviewed those people, and their accounts sketch out their lives' circumstances. The film approaches a secret world by means of pictures going below the surface, with much importance placed on detail, but without ever showing up the people whose lives it recounts.
Director: Mark Chapman, Producer: Mark Chapman,
Script: Mark Chapman, DoP: Mark Chapman,
Editor: Mark Chapman, Sound: Phil Begg, Kev Todd, Chris Younger, Alex Rea, Music: N/A
Mark Chapman is a filmmaker and artist based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. His moving-image work has been selected for numerous film and media arts festivals. Previously, he was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus at the Berlin Film Festival. He currently teaches film production at Northumbria University.
Short Documentary / Animation Film 1
Sunday, 2. October, 20pm
Zaungespräche / Conversation over the Fence /
Switzerland / 2015 / Documentary / 13 min
OT German / UT English
A deportees' prison at the Zurich airport. The Swiss have a strange word for deportation which translates as 'working someone out of the country'. The director of this film, a member of the Solidarity Network Prisoners' Committee, regularly sees the detained people awaiting deportation, but she's not allowed to bring her camera. What she was able to capture eventually, seemingly incidental, shows the prisoners' situation in an even more absurd light: people who are detained without having committed a crime, and airplanes taking off into the sky without evoking feelings of setting out on a journey or a fresh start in life.
Director: Lisa Gerig, Producer: Lisa Gerig,
Script: Lisa Gerig, DoP: Lisa Gerig,
Editor: Lisa Gerig, Sound: Lisa Gerig, Music: N/A
Lisa Gerig was born 1990 in Morges and grew up in Zurich. She studied film at Zurich University of the Arts, In 2013 she spent one semester at HEAD, Geneva, working in Andrea Staka's studio. She also worked with Naomi Kawase, Nara (Japan) for one month and has been an assistant to Thomas Imbach since May 2015.
Short Documentary / Animation Film 1
Sunday, 2. October, 20pm
Helikopter-Hausarrest / Helicopter-House Arrest /
Germany / 2015 / Documentary / 38 min
OT German / UT English
Helicopter – House Arrest is a portrait of 27-year-old Benjamin who is doing time in his mother's flat under electronical supervision in the course of a ten-month home detention sentence. Constantin Hatz and his team accompany Benjamin and his mother, who have dissociated from each other over the last years. Official procedure brings them back together again and forces them to share a small flat on the outskirts of Vienna. The pictures, repetitive and claustrophobic, lead us into the very centre of their confinement and maddening circumstances.
Director: Constantin Hatz, Producer: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg,
Script: N/A, DoP: Rafael Starmann,
Editor: Marco Rottig, Sound: Michael Geck, Music: N/A
Constantin Hatz was born in Vienna in 1989 and grew up there, too. He graduated from Vienna Higher Education College for the Graphic Arts with majors in photography and audio-visual media. Since 2012 Constantin Hatz has been a student of film direction at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.
Short Documentary 2
Friday, 7. October, 18pm
The Meadow / Die Wiese
Switzerland / 2015 / Documentary / 8 min
OT ohne Di / UT -
The Meadow leads us onto the Golan Heights, located between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel and debatable ground for millenia. A herd of cattle grazing in a dry, steppe-like landscape, accompanied by dogs and guarded by cowboys. Little by little, subtle pictures reveal that the seemingly peaceful surroundings are deceptive.
Director: Jela Hasler, Producer: Jela Hasler,
Script: Jela Hasler, DoP: Andi Widmer,
Editor: Stephan Heiniger, Sound: Jela Hasler, Thomas Gassmann, Music: Albin Rohrer
Jela Hasler studied photography at Zurich University of the Arts and spent one semester at Marmara University in Istanbul. She continued her studies in the Video Arts programme at Lucerne University of Design and Arts. She lives and works as an independent filmmaker in Zurich.
Short Documentary 2
Friday, 7. October, 18pm
Strana Udehe / Land of Udehe / Land der Udehe
Russian Federation / 2015 / Documentary / 26 min
OT Russian / UT English
Filmmaker Ivan Golovnev is no stranger to the Eberswalde Filmfest. This year he's going to introduce the world of the Udehe, native inhabitants of far-east Russia, to us. Their population, according to a 2010 census, has shrunk to 1490. In a mixture of fiction and documentary, the Udehe tell us about where they came from and what will await them in the next world.
Director: Ivan Golovnev, Producer: Vladimir Golovnev,
Script: Vladimir Arseniev, DoP: Maksim Drozdov,
Editor: Ivan Golovnev, Sound: Vladimir Persov, Music: The Veresk group
Ivan Golovnev is a graduate from Omsk State University, History department. He finished college at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio in Ekaterinburg and the Highest Courses of Film Writers and Directors in Moscow. Ivan Golovnev was participant and winner of international Film Festivals (Berlinale, Oberhausen, etc.)
Short Documentary 2
Friday, 7. October, 18pm
A Place to Fight / Ein Platz zum Kämpfen
Indonesia, Germany / 2015 / Documentary / 14 min
OT English / UT German
Cockfights, though illegal across the whole country, are deeply ingrained in Indonesian culture. They just don't cease to exist. There is illegal betting, customary gathering and all the thrill of a bloody and brutal fight in between. A Place to Fight manages to capture all facets of the tradition.
Director: Matthias Lawetzky, Producer: Matthias Lawetzky,
Script: Matthias Lawetzky, DoP: Matthias Lawetzky,
Editor: Matthias Lawetzky, Sound: Jonatan Schwenk, Music: Pema Lenggu
Matthias Lawetzky, born 1986 in Wiesbaden, has been a student at Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach since 2008 and works as an independent filmmaker and cinematographer.
Short Documentary 2
Friday, 7. October, 18pm
Das Offenbare Geheimnis / An Apparent Secret /
Germany / 2015 / Documentary / 29 min
OT German / UT English
This is a portrait of Emmelsum, a village of 300 inhabitants and no places of interest. While researching into local heraldry, the filmmaker came across the small community of Emmelsum in North Rhine-Westphalia, whose coat of arms shows a large bee against a green background. Looking for further information, she found a Wikipedia entry stating that the village had some 300 residents, had never been autonomous and did not have any places of interest. The village website puts it concisely: “There is not much to say about Emmelsum.” Nevertheless, the film attempts a portrait.
Director: Eva Könnemann, Producer: Eva Könnemann,
Script: Eva Könnemann, DoP: Eva Könnemann,
Editor: Eva Könnemann, Sound: Joachim Schütz, Music: N/A
Eva Könnemann, an independent filmmaker, lives and works in Berlin.