The grad­u­a­tion film WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? by direct­ing grad­u­ate Alexan­dre Koberidze cel­e­brates its world pre­miere in com­pe­ti­tion at the 71st Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val.

Observ­ing every­day life in Kutaisi, Geor­gia, with humour and sen­si­tiv­i­ty, the 150-minute film paints a mag­i­cal love sto­ry that seems impos­si­ble, yet ends on a hope­ful note. “I want­ed to make a film about the love of cin­e­ma, in times when oth­ers have long since declared cin­e­ma dead,” says the direc­tor, who was born in Tbil­isi in 1984.

WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? was fund­ed by Medi­en­board Berlin-Bran­den­burg and Rund­funk Berlin-Bran­den­burg as part of the LEUCHTSTOFF pro­gram. With the young pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny New Mat­ter Films, found­ed by the stu­dents Mari­am Shat­berashvili and Luise Hauschild as well as cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Faraz Fes­hara­ki, the direc­tor has gath­ered an ambi­tious, moti­vat­ed, and high­ly tal­ent­ed team around him, which suc­cess­ful­ly worked togeth­er on the real­iza­tion of this spe­cial grad­u­a­tion film.

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late the entire team for this huge hon­our and are already keep­ing our fin­gers crossed for the Gold­en Bear Awards on March 5!

It’s that time again: The 71st Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val is about to begin. Due to the pan­dem­ic, this year’s fes­ti­val will be divid­ed into two parts: a vir­tu­al indus­try event in March and an audi­ence fes­ti­val in June. We are delight­ed that fan­tas­tic pro­duc­tions fea­tur­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of numer­ous DFFB alum­ni will screen in the var­i­ous sec­tions.

Sec­tion: Encoun­ters

12 films, includ­ing 7 debut films, were invit­ed to the Encoun­ters com­pe­ti­tion, which is held for the sec­ond time this year.

One of these films is BLOODSUCKERS by direc­tor Julian Radl­maier, which will have its world pre­miere at the fes­ti­val. Togeth­er with fel­low alum­ni Kir­ill Krasovs­ki (pro­duc­er) and Markus Koob (cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er), Radlmaier’s film won­der­ful­ly recounts the sto­ry of a pen­ni­less Sovi­et refugee who falls in love with a young, wealthy Ger­man vam­pire who spends the sum­mer by the sea with her awk­ward assis­tant. Alexan­dre Koberidze, direc­tor and recent DFFB grad­u­ate, stars in BLOODSUCKERS.

THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER by Ramon and Sil­van Zürcher, who both stud­ied with at the DFFB, is a film from Switzer­land that is in the run­ning for the Best Film Award, the Best Direc­tor Award, and the Spe­cial Jury Prize. Alexan­der Haßk­erl (cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er) cap­tured this tragi­com­ic poet­ic bal­lad about change and tran­sience.

Sec­tion: Panora­ma

In this sec­tion DFFB alum­nus Mar­tin Heisler pro­duced Hen­ri­ka Kull’s fea­ture film BLISS, which vivid­ly tells the love sto­ry of two sex work­ers. This film will debut the Berli­nale.

Sec­tion: Per­spec­tive Ger­man Cin­e­ma

The doc­u­men­tary WHEN A FARM GOES AFLAME by alum­nus Jide Tom Akin­leminu will cel­e­brate its world pre­miere in the Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. The film tells the per­son­al sto­ry of a father‘s dou­ble life and sen­si­tive­ly accom­pa­nies the char­ac­ters on their jour­ney of emo­tion­al heal­ing.

JESUS EGON CHRIST by David and Saša Vaj­da will have its world pre­miere at the Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. DFFB stu­dent Anto­nia Lange is the cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er of this inti­mate dra­ma about the lone­li­ness of psy­chosis and a group of junkies in with­draw­al.

We con­grat­u­late our stu­dents and alum­ni and very much hope to see all the films on the big screen very soon!

Pho­to Cred­it: WHEN A FARM GOES AFLAME © Jide Tom Akin­leminu 

TALES FROM THE BLUE BUS — GESCHICHTEN AUS ACCRA tells of the trag­ic jour­ney of sev­en strangers trav­el­ling in an old blue bus that has been cursed by a venge­ful god­dess. The African-Euro­pean web series was joint­ly devel­oped and pro­duced by stu­dents of the DFFB, the Nation­al Film and Tele­vi­sion Insti­tute (Ghana), and the Maisha Film Lab (Ugan­da).

This film explores the process­es of change in soci­ety and the asso­ci­at­ed per­son­al chal­lenges that young peo­ple in West Africa face. The themes of iso­la­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ty bind all the episodes togeth­er. But the film lan­guage is fresh and vis­cer­al and cre­ates an extra­or­di­nary view­ing expe­ri­ence far away from the con­ven­tions of estab­lished reportage and glossy pro­duc­tions.

Entwick­elt wurde die Serie von 15 stu­den­tis­chen Filmemacher*innen aus Deutsch­land, Ghana und Ostafri­ka. In mehreren Devel­op­ment-Work­shops in Ghana und Ugan­da hat das Team – beste­hend aus jun­gen Filmemacher*innen aus Accra, Kam­pala und Berlin – zusam­men die Geschicht­en weit­er­en­twick­elt. Für die Umset­zung war ein Showrun­ner aus Ugan­da zuständig; die Regie ver­ant­worteten Studierende aus Ghana und Berlin. Das Filmteam vor Ort umfasste ca. 50 Studierende des NAFTI. Unter­stützt und gefördert wurde die Gruppe vom Bun­desmin­is­teri­um für wirtschaftliche Zusam­me­nar­beit und Entwick­lung und der Deutschen Welle Akademie.

The series was devel­oped by 15 stu­dent film­mak­ers from Ger­many, Ghana, and East Africa. In sev­er­al devel­op­ment work­shops in Ghana and Ugan­da, the team—comprising young film­mak­ers from Accra, Kam­pala, and Berlin—developed the sto­ries togeth­er. The showrun­ner is from Ugan­da; the direc­tors are stu­dents from Ghana and Berlin. The film team on loca­tion con­sist­ed of about 50 NAFTI stu­dents. The group was sup­port­ed and fund­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion and Devel­op­ment and the Deutsche Welle Acad­e­my.

Click here to view the series. Enjoy!