Christoph Friedel

A voice that claims to be from a hippopotamus. A voice that doesn’t understand the perception of time. Pepe, the first and last hippo killed in the Americas, tells his story with the overwhelming orality of these towns.

Marcelo, 50 years old, has dedicated his life to teaching philosophy at the Public University and suddenly his mentor and boss, Professor Caselli, dies. Disoriented in this new landscape, Marcelo assumes that he will inherit the position left vacant by his mentor. What he doesn't expect is that Rafael Sujarchuk, a charismatic and pedantic philosopher trained in the best European universities, also covets the position. Between his multiple jobs as a philosophy professor in the local slums, at the university and privately with an 80-year-old millionaire, he must also prepare to run for office against this strong opponent who seems to have everyone on his side. Marcelo's clumsy efforts don't seem to be enough to get the job, but is that really what he wants?

The battle for the release of her son Murat from Guantanamo catapults Turkish housewife Rabiye Kurnaz from her terraced house in Bremen straight into world politics and all the way to the Supreme Court in Washington. At her side is human rights lawyer Bernhard Docke - the reserved, level-headed lawyer and the temperamental Turkish mother with a wicked sense of humour – now fighting side-by-side to get Murat out.

After most of her family is murdered in a terrorist bombing, a young woman is unknowingly lured into joining the very group that killed them.

Humberto Brause takes advantage of Uruguay’s poor economy by specializing in offshore money laundering. Spanning the fifties to the seventies, the film follows Humberto as he gets increasingly in over his head with multiple shady book-cooking schemes throughout South America, leading to an ultimate life-or-death decision.

A father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation.

The real life story of East German singer and writer Gerhard Gundermann and his struggles with music, life as a coal miner and his dealings with the secret police (STASI) of the GDR.

Marcela’s world becomes strange and unfamiliar after her sister Rina dies. She feels lost in her own house, and her relationship with her husband and children seems to suffer. But when Nacho, a young friend of her daughter’s, unexpectedly drops by, she starts to talk and walk with him. Gradually Marcela begins to have conversations with relatives from another dimension.

Armin, in his fourties, is a freelancer with lots of time and little money. He’s not really happy, but can’t picture living a different life. One morning the world looks the same as always, but mankind has disappeared.

Painting is an unacceptable vocation for a woman in provincial Germany in the year 1900, but budding artist Paula Becker is determined to make her own rules.

It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.

Louise, Sam, Lili. Three women who don't know each other but whom will be forced to meet, get together, and compare themselves to each other by the wild will of evolution.

A twist of fate leaves a hapless accountant romantically torn between two sisters.

When Norwegian scientist Marie attends a seminar in Paris on the actual weight of a kilo, it is her own measurement of disappointment, grief and, not least, love, that ends up on the scale. Finally Marie is forced to come to terms with how much a human life truly weighs and which measurements she intends to live by.

Mariano, 16, inexplicably and without warning, shoots himself twice and improbably survives. Then, life goes on. His brother pursues a romance with a girl working at a fast-food joint, his mother takes off on a trip with a stranger, and Mariano recruits a woman to join his medieval wind ensemble.

When their parents die, Bianca starts to smoke and Tomas is still a virgin. The orphans explore the dangerous streets of adulthood until Bianca finds Maciste, a retired Mr. Universe, and enters his dark mansion in search of a future.

Daniel and Alejandra, a working class couple in their late 30s, move to the countryside near the Andes Mountains to begin the next chapter of their life together. Alejandra is ill, and Daniel looks after her, his soul mate. He scratches out a living doing farm work, while dreaming of buying his own plot of land. Over the course of a year, director Alejandro Fernández Almendras captures a life of love and frustration as Alejandra’s condition worsens, and Daniel can do nothing but keep on struggling.

Daniel and Alejandra, a working class couple in their late 30s, move to the countryside near the Andes Mountains to begin the next chapter of their life together. Alejandra is ill, and Daniel looks after her, his soul mate. He scratches out a living doing farm work, while dreaming of buying his own plot of land. Over the course of a year, director Alejandro Fernández Almendras captures a life of love and frustration as Alejandra’s condition worsens, and Daniel can do nothing but keep on struggling.

Marco returns to Paris after his brother-in-law's suicide, where he targets the man his sister believes caused the tragedy - though he is ill-prepared for her secrets as they quickly muddy the waters.

Pedro, a humble beekeeper who lives in the mysterious Argentinian region of the Delta del Tigre, travels to Buenos Aires to visit his twin brother Agustín, a successful but troubled pediatrician with marital issues, to give him bad news and ask him for a favor hard to fulfill, a unexpected arrival which will change Agustín's life forever.

Dissatisfied with his new life (and wife), a man tries to insinuate himself back into the home of the ex-wife and daughter he left ten years before.

Martin is a neurotic web designer taking baby steps out of the isolation of his one-room apartment and his virtual reality. Mariana is an artist fresh out of a a long relationship. They are perfect for each other, live on the same street, in opposite buildings, but they never meet. Can the movement of a modern city of three million people bring them together?

Adapted from a series of short stories by Norwegian author Levi Henriksen, Bent Hamers Home for Christmas weaves together the lives of people struggling to find their way home on a Christmas Eve, beneath the colors of the Northern Lights. The plot unfolds during a few afternoon hours on Christmas Eve. The individual stories, which at times intertwine, are set in the small town Skogli. The characters in the stories cover a great range in age and life situations, representing both reconciliation with their own lives and strong frustration. Some show the will to understand and do something about their lives, while others have given up. Deeply tragic and melancholy aspects are mixed with humour and rather frivolous solutions.

A German flight attendant's life spirals downward after she leaves her husband, quits her job, and joins a radical group of animal rights activists.

A Chilean family deals with the new values in a quickly changing world.

A chronicle of a supermarket security guard's obsession with a late-shift janitor.

Lionel, a widower, has raised his daughter, Josephine, on his own since she was young. The two are used to living alone, depending solely on one another. But, now that Josephine is older, Lionel is beginning to realize they cannot stay isolated forever.

A portrait of Rita, who claims that her mother was never a mother for her. Rita gives birth to her own five children and forces her mother to take the role of a mother.

A Himalayan legend of a love struggling against the inevitability of death, an astonishing tale spanning from the early 19th century mountain existence, to hectic, bustling modern day Tokyo.

Angela is a French art student living in Germany who loves to draw comics and creates elaborate tales drawn in a soft and romantic style. One night, Angela meets Yamamoto, a club DJ from Japan, who invites her to come to Tokyo with him. Infatuated with Yamamoto, Angela impulsively agrees, and is soon sharing an apartment with a handful of Western expatriates who work at a nightclub where Japanese businessmen drink, sing karaoke, and date the "hostesses" for a fee.

When his long-lost brother resurfaces, Jacobo, desperate to prove his life has added up to something, looks to scrounge up a wife. He turns to Marta, an employee at his sock factory, with whom he has a prickly relationship.

A fairy tale-like love story between young circus artist Lola and the bear Misha, who one day transforms into a human being.

Martha is a single woman who lives for one passion: cooking. The head chef at a chic restaurant, Martha has no time for anything - or anyone - else. But Martha's solitary life is shaken when a fateful accident brings her sister's eight-year-old daughter, Lina, to her doorstep.

A crime soap opera about a Russian mobster retiring from "the business" on New Year's Eve, only to discover he has been targeted for death by a rival mobster.

The unborn child of Mamlakat is telling her story. She is 17, beautiful and vivacious, and dreaming secretly of becoming an actress. She lives with her father and brother in a small village in Central Asia. One night she is seduced by an actor from a travelling troupe, who poses as a friend of Tom Cruise, and makes her pregnant. She tries to abort, but her father and brother become determined to find the seducer, setting in motion a cascade of comic adventures.