Gisela Castronari

Movies

The Day the Sun Fell
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Tracing the past of her deceased grandfather who worked as a young doctor in the Red Cross hospital of HirSwiss-Japanese filmmaker Aya Domenig, the granddaughter of a doctor on duty during the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, approaches the experience of her deceased grandfather by tracing the lives of a doctor and of former nurses who once shared the same experience. While gathering the memories and present views of these last survivors, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima strikes and history seems to repeat itself.oshima after the atomic bomb was dropped over the city, the filmmaker encounters doctors and nurses who went through similar experiences to his at the time. Right up until his death in 1991, her grandfather was never able to speak about his experiences, but the formidable stories and openness of her protagonists bring her closer to his past.
Der weisse Äthiopier
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In Ethiopia, Frank Michalka has found a new home and left his criminal past behind. But happiness does not last long and the former offender must go back to Germany. Once there, he immediately falls back into old patterns and robbed a bank.
Die Lehrerin
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A teacher's colleague is critically wounded by a student. Traumatized, she attempts to cope.
The Woman with the 5 Elephants
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Documentary about Svetlana Geier, a Ukranian who has translated the great works of Dostoyevsky into German. First her father ends up in one of Stalin's prison camps, then young Svetlana herself experiences the German invasion. In order to survive she learns German at home in Kiev. She is good and gets work as a translator before ending up in a German camp in 1943. Now, 65 years later, she is a renowned translator who in her twilight years has translated the great works of Dostoevsky. For the first time in all these years, she returns to Kiev together with her granddaughter.
Der Nikolaus im Haus
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Middle of the Moment
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Filmmakers Nicolaus Humbert and Werner Penzel examine the nature of nomadic existence in this documentary, from the literal nomads of North Africa to the more metaphorical kind of wanderer, such as American poet and ex-pat Robert Lax. Humbert and Penzel focus especially on the nomad's paradoxical ability to fully inhabit every moment while remaining coolly detached from specific locales and anxious thoughts about the past or future.
Step Across the Border
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An avant-garde documentary film on English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith.
Summertime Blues
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Those Lemon Popsicle boys are at it again!..Naughtier than ever in...
Wenn ich dieses Leben nicht hätte, würde ich sterben: Paolo Conte
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Documentary about Italian musician and lawyer Paolo Conte.
Wolfsgrub - Portrait of My Mother
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In this film, Humbert is on the trail of his own history. Wolfsgrub is the name of the house where Humbert's mother lives, and though she is getting on in years, she becomes young again as she answers her son's questions. Humbert allows his mother the space and time to tell her story, portraying he everyday life through the use of concentrated images. From the bits and pieces of these narrative fragments, a stunning portrait of a freethinking woman emerges.
Fog Chasers
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Philip, Max, and Julia Rossmann are brothers and sister. Out of their own life, they try to continue childhood bonds. Through their entanglement in a mysterious event, the three are torn apart. For each, a new beginning. The film begins a year later. Quite impulsively, Philip Rossmann leaves his hide-out to go and look for his lost brother. He meets former friends with whose help he tries to reconstruct his brother's trail. Despite the setbacks his research brings, he is able to track down his brother. They meet.
The Shipwrecker
Editor
Three actors portray scenes from the life of Sterling Hayden, with a particular focus on his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Inspired by Hayden’s memoir “Wanderer.”