Träume von Räumen

Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of new arrivals and mass tourists in Berlin Mitte, and only a stone’s throw away from the great Volksbühne theatre, there is an architectural ensemble, the ‘Kleine Bremer Höhe’ — its red brick houses almost untouched by time. Since 1989 the collective housing estate for workers, built during the German Empire, has served as a refuge to artists, punks and senior citizens. To the occasional random visitor the quiet courtyard with its dreamy linden trees presents itself as an enchanted garden right off the busy life of Torstrasse. A tracking shot past the trash cans by the entrance reveals an orderless space in which the few remaining tenants cross paths and linger to daydream and converse. ‘What does it mean to inhabit a space?’, asks filmmaker and resident Matthias Lintner at the beginning of the film. The answer lies in the affectionate portraits of his neighbours. The director closely watches and listens to his house mates, who have built a world of their own, and refuses to focus on the outside world. Ideas on vacantness and void appear as a subversive act against the utopia of the well-ordered spaces and echo the thoughts of writer Georges Perec — his quotes adding an essay-like layer.

Credits

Cast:

Båtsman & Spooky

Koben

Rafael Fortuna

Herr Pieper

Matthias Lintner

Script:

Matthias Lintner

Camera:

Francisco Medina

Matthias Lintner

Matilda Mester

Carlos Andrés López

Christopher Aoun

Editing:

Ginés Olivares

Producer:

Matthias Lintner

Ewelina Rosinska

Sound:

Matthias Lintner

Tondesign:

Joscha Eickel

Music:

Josépha van der Schoot

Hisato Higuchi

Rafael Fortuna

Film info

Direction:

Matthias Lintner

Genre:

documentary

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Production:

2018

Shooting format:

Digital

Screening format:

16:9

Frame rate:

25 fps

Aspect ratio:

16:9

Sound format:

Dolby 5.1

Language:

German with English subtitels

Version:

OV

Runtime:

85

Night Owls

"Night Owls" is inspired by Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks and tells the story of a couple of revelers whose ways cross by chance at an isolated petrol station. Jonathan, a young, naive gas station clerk becomes a voyeur in the boredom of the night and watches Michaela, a mysterious woman, have anonymous sex. "Night Owls" is a dreamy appeal to love and life, a film about the curiosity and the expansion of one's own horizon against all prejudices.

Credits

Cast:

Valentin Erb – Jonathan

Maik Solbach – Michael/a

Script:

Samuel Auer

Camera:

Lukas Eylandt

Editing:

Wiebke Henrich

Producer:

Tamara Erbe

Sound:

Andor Horváth

Film info

Direction:

Samuel Auer

Genre:

Kurzfilm

Country of production:

Germanyccc

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Production:

2016

Shooting format:

Digital

Screening format:

16:9

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

16:9

Sound format:

Stereo

Language:

German, English subtitles

Version:

OV

Runtime:

7

Das Melancholische Mädchen (Aren’t you happy?)

A girl roams through the city looking for a place to sleep. Along the way she meets young mothers who celebrate motherhood religiously, goes home with an abstinent existentialist for whom sex is “just another market”, and waits for the end of capitalism in a drag bar. Her attempt to write a book doesn’t make it beyond the first sentence of the second chapter, and she finds no space between art galleries, yoga studios and the beds of strangers. Instead of trying to fit in, she starts regarding her depression as a political issue. Through 15 of the girl’s humorous encounters, AREN’T YOU HAPPY? explores our post-modern society between precarity and self-marketing, serial monogamy and neo-spirituality, disillusionment and the pressure to be happy. Susanne Heinrich’s debut film brings together pop and theory, feminism and humour, and gives you tons of quotes you’ll want to see on advertising billboards in neon letters.

Credits

Camera:

Agnesh Pakozdi

Script:

Susanne Heinrich

Editing:

Susanne Heinrich

Benjamin Mirguet

Production Design:

Jeanne Louet

Miren Oller

Nora Willy

Sound:

Wiebke Köplin

Silvio Naumann

Music:

Mathias Bloech

Moritz Sembritzki

Ausstattung:

Lisa Poethke

Film info

Direction:

Susanne Heinrich

Genre:

fictional

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Essential Films

Shooting format:

Digital

Screening format:

4:3

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

4:3

Sound format:

Dolby 5.1

Language:

German, English subtitles

Version:

OV

Runtime:

80

Tom Schäfer

Tom Schäfer, in his mid-thirties, is employed in a municipal library. He looks quite nice - a bit dreamy. The birthday of a colleague on this Friday afternoon is a reason for all the staff of the library to meet for a coffee in the staff kitchen. Tom Schäfer is marginalized by his colleagues, nobody seems to want to have something to do with him. Nevertheless, he repeats his suggestion to drink a beer together. Until a colleague says yes. Tom Schäfer patiently waits for him, but in vain. When he understands that he has been forgotten, he makes his way home alone. At home his dog is waiting.

Credits

Cast:

Matthi Faust – Tom Schäfer

Andreas Merker – Karl Ohm

Stefan Ostertag – Friedrich Schönfeld

Paul Schaeffer – Janis Krämer

Susanne Szell – Mona

Lilli Meinhart – Olga

Script:

Isabella Kröger

Camera:

Jasper Techel

Producer:

Clara Gerst

Sound:

Matthias Rohde

Ausstattung:

Genja Leis

Film info

Direction:

Gerald Sommerauer

Genre:

Kurzfilm

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Production:

2017

Shooting format:

Digital

Screening format:

1:1,85

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

1:1,85

Sound format:

Dolby 5.1

Language:

German, English subtitles

Version:

OV

Runtime:

17

Warten auf Linda

The gatekeepers of death are driving inside a speeding car on their way to a pick up job on Earth, but they are running late. Therefore, two dead men inside a burger shop have a few extra moments to spare.

Credits

Cast:

Tristan Pranyko – Guenther

Malte Hermann – Werner

Lea Ostrovskiy – Linda

Ralf Kilauea – Gatekeeper 1

Joerg Odenbach – Gatekeeper 2

Drehbuch (Credit):

Shazad Madon

Editing:

Marian Marx

Camera:

Felix Schuster

Producer:

Anna Werner

Sound:

Torsten Hoppe

Film info

Direction:

Shazad Madon

Genre:

Kurzfilm

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Production:

2018

Shooting format:

Digital

Screening format:

1:1,85

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

1:1,85

Sound format:

Dolby 5.1

Language:

German, English subtitles

Version:

OV

Runtime:

22

Ich geh jetzt (I go now)

Paula and Hektor, a couple in the second half of their twenties, are moving into their new flat because they are expecting a child. In the house of her childhood, Paula tries to convince her father to finally let go of her, meanwhile Hektor sneaks away. Back in the city he tracks down an old love affair. He wants to understand: how do you leave without looking back?

Credits

Cast:

Stellan Torrn – Hektor

Kristin Suckow – Paula

Lena Reinhold – Lu

Drehbuch (Credit):

Oliver Moser

Editing:

Oliver Moser

Producer:

Romana Janik

Camera:

Moritz Friese

Music:

Matthias Petsche

Film info

Direction:

Oliver Moser

Genre:

Kurzfilm

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

RBB

Production:

2018

Shooting format:

Digital

Screening format:

16:9

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

16:9

Sound format:

Stereo

Language:

German, English subtitles

Version:

OV

Runtime:

23

Hier, für dich. (Here, for you.)

An dem Tag, an dem die beiden Freunde Franziska und Cédric eine Schutzehe eingehen wollen, kommt es aufgrund Franziskas Verspätung zu Komplikationen im Standesamt und die beiden werden sowohl was ihr Auftreten als Paar, als auch was ihre Entscheidung anbelangt überraschend herausgefordert.

Credits

Cast:

Valéry Valère – Cederic

Amanda Mincewicz – Franziska

Bettina Ratschew – die Beamtin

Mario Klischies – Bräutigam

Siyaka Keitamansaringsama – Bijan

Leon Schröder – Leon

Drehbuch (Credit):

Olivia Requat

Camera:

Gisela Günther

Editing:

Laura Hölzel

Producer:

Anna Werner

Sound:

Niels Pelz

Music:

Matthias Jahner

Film info

Direction:

Lisa Hürtgen

Genre:

Kurzfilm

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Production:

2021

Shooting format:

16mm

Screening format:

1:2,35

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

1:2,35

Sound format:

Dolby 5.1

Language:

German, English subtitles

Version:

OV

Runtime:

10

Learn to Swim

On one ordinary Sunday morning, Karin took her daughter's racing bicycle to see Wieland in the little runaways' farm he is now living in. Driven by unexplainable longing to her grown up baby that doesn’t want to be found, Karin appears without a notice in her son's new home. All she wants is to see if he has everything he needs and cycle her way back home before sunset, to give her grumpy daughter her stolen bike back. In her mind, Karin is sure of being the most caring, altruistic and well doing mother. Putting everything aside, opening a front with Wielands teenager sister, she is sacrificing her weekend, to take care of her son and fulfil her role as a mother. However, Wieland finds her attempt to please him rather unmindful and invidious.   Hit by Wieland’s rejection to her help attempt, Karin drops the reins and lets him lead her slowly through his little world.

Credits

Cast:

Stephanie Petrowitz – Karin

Luca Hennig – Wieland

Drehbuch (Credit):

Gaya von Schwarze

Mirko Rachor

Josephine Oleak

Camera:

Raban Jakob Friedrich

Editing:

Gaya von Schwarze

Producer:

Ibrahim-Utku Erdogan

Leonie Schäfer

Sound:

Anika Danielle Wagner

Music:

Lukas Lonski

Film info

Direction:

Gaya von Schwarze

Genre:

Kurzfilm

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Production:

2018

Shooting format:

16mm

Screening format:

1:2.39

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

1:2.39

Language:

German

Version:

OV

Runtime:

17

The building

In eastern Ukraine, in Kharkiv, lies Derzhprom, the state-owned house. Built between 1925 and 1928 in the style of constructivism, it was intended to embody the idea of communism. Although it is one of the largest realized constructivist buildings and a poster child for the 1920s avant-garde movement, it seems almost forgotten. The film Budinok (The House) moves between the classic, observational documentary and the experimental cinema. With very little dialogue, it is rather a poem of moving images. The use of mixed materials - 16 mm, Hi8, HD, 35mm archive material from the 20's and video archive invites you to reflect on how past and present are interconnected and how movement and time are related to the static of architecture. Derzhprom acts as a kind of time machine that travels through time as an absolutely immovable object. The space becomes here the time. Using text panels in the movie forces the connection to the silent movie. Danish Sound artist Felia Gram-Hanssen has composed a piece for the film in the silence of concrete music, consisting only of recorded natural sounds - an idea that goes back to Soviet artists of the 1920s. The sounds follow the rhythm of the building, the inner rhythm of the forms, an idea of Cubist art. The Constructivists asked what is the relationship between life and art, politics and aesthetics. In the film Budinok (The Building) we look at the fragments of a time (like the rag- picker of history) in which a new society seemed possible, fascinated by the choreography of the people moving through the corridors, floors and doors of this giant-time machine, convinced that the History is ultimately about the people who inhabit it.

Credits

Cast:

Camera:

Matilda Mester

Editing:

Matilda Mester

Tatjana Kononenko

Bruno Derksen

Sound:

Tobias Bilz

Jan Pasemann

Music:

Felia Gram-Hanssen

Film info

Direction:

Matilda Mester

Tatjana Kononenko

Genre:

documentary

Country of production:

Germany

Production Company:

Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin

Production:

2019

Shooting format:

16mm

Screening format:

1:1,78

Frame rate:

24 fps

Aspect ratio:

1:1,78

Sound format:

Dolby 5.1

Language:

Russian, Ukrainian, German

Version:

OV

Festivals:

23. Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (24.-29.10.2019)

29. Film Festival Cottbus (5.-11.11.2019)

13. Artdocfest (05.-12.12.2019)

Docudays UA (24.04.-10.05.2020)

Open City Documentary Festival (09.-15.09.2020)

Kaunas International Film Festival 2020 (17.-27.09.2020)

IV Kharkiv MeetDocs EUFF (26.-31.10.2020)

8th CinéDOC-Tbilisi (23.-27.04.2020)

OKO International Ethnographic Film Festival (11-18.09.21)

Arkitekturfilm Oslo (21.-24.10.2021)

Runtime:

93 min