Genesis (2018)

Seven-year-old Siv’s first night sleeping over at her new friend Cerisia’s place turns out to be a magical one. In the early evening, many things are already beginning to seem odd, the exotic food, all of the animals ... At night though, the unfamiliar flat really starts to become a realm full of secrets.

In 1987 GDR citizen Mario Röllig was arrested in Hungary for attempting to flee the GDR. Nowadays he gives talks about his experiences. This portrait shows just how subjective and riddled with taboos attempts to interpret GDR history can be.

Today is the day of truth. Tomás, 12, has heard adults' excuses and delaying tactics long enough, today is the day the man who killed his father is being released from prison. And Tomás is ready.

The panoramic shots are breathtaking: a majestic mountain landscape in winter, flat-roofed tin shacks cowering next to one other, women perched on steep slopes using primitive tools to break through pieces of rock. La Rinconada is situated over 5,000 meters high in the Peruvian Andes, on the edge of a gold mine. This 21st century El Dorado is an inhospitable place, where untold numbers of people live and work in the most precarious of conditions, hoping both for gold and a better life. Salomé Lamas has constructed a cinematic diptych to convey the extremity of this situation and the dimensions of its misery without having to resort to graphic images.

Amiko, a high school girl, adores Aomi to the point of nearly worshipping him. But one day, he runs away from home. Amiko's sometimes cynical, sometimes self-deprecating inner monologue goes off like vibrant stand-up comedy.

Wu is in her mid-twenties and lives with her mother in a traditional one-story house in one of Beijing’s hutongs. Both consider themselves to be writers, but success has so far eluded them. The fact that Wu is supported by a divorced, elderly man helps the women through lean periods. Their unhealthily close relationship is characterized by reproaches and quibbling; only during meals do they appear to lay down their verbal weapons. The situation escalates when both Wu and her mother hit an emotional low.

10-year-old Shi Tou (Stonehead), the son of a migrant laborer, grows up alone with his grandmother. Sharing a reward with a classmate or waiting until his father returns, obeying his teacher or protecting his friend - which one should he choose?

Looking to investigate recruitment techniques of ISIS to lure women into Syria, a journalist creates a Facebook profile of a Muslim convert. When an ISIS recruiter contacts her online character, she experiences the process first hand.

The middle-aged family man Hans-Christian (HC) left by his wife goes to Ireland for a short break with his old friends Wolfgang and Nic. He should win at Guinness bonfires and fishing trips distance to the chaos at home. HC has to learn to say no and need other women, his friends believe, to get rid of his loser habitus. In the already tense situation, old competition fights, outbursts of anger and self-pity quickly come up. And Nic and Wolfgang seem to have needed the time-out almost as much as HC.

Lotte is impulsive, rough around the edges and leads a colourful life on the streets of Berlin, stumbling from man to man, flat to flat and bar to bar. A brief encounter with a young girl, Greta, turns her life upside down. Lotte realises she will not be able to run away this time.

A film about the tormenting presence of absence. A young shop girl named Xiao Mei suddenly vanishes from her usual existence, without explanation or trace. Has she dissolved, or perhaps redeemed herself somehow? Nine people from her immediate surroundings try to fill the empty space left behind by this supposedly insignificant young woman. In a kaleidoscope of meandering memories, projections, confessions, interpretations, incantations and helpless speculations through which the young escapee wanders aimlessly, they attempt to solve the mystery of her disappearance.

Sarajevo on 28 of June, 2014. At the Hotel Europa, the best hotel in town, the manager Omer prepares to welcome a delegation of diplomatic VIPs. On the centenary of the assassination that is considered to have led to World War I, an appeal for peace and understanding is supposed to start from here. But the hotel staff have other worries: having not been paid for months, they are planning to go on strike. Hatidza from the hotel laundry is elected strike leader even though her daughter Lamija, who works in reception, is firmly against industrial action. Meanwhile, in the sealed-off presidential suite, a guest from France rehearses a speech. Elsewhere, a television reporter conducts interviews about war and its consequences. Was Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 assassin, a criminal or a national hero? What long shadow does his deed cast into the present?

Digitalization has changed society. While data is becoming the "new oil", data protection is becoming the new "pollution control". This creative documentary opens an astonishing inside view into the lawmaking milieu on EU level. A compelling story of how a group of politicians try to protect todays society against the impact of Big Data and mass surveillance.

Ever since their first contact with the Western world in 1969 the Paiter Suruí, an indigenous people living in the Amazon basin, have been exposed to sweeping social changes. Smartphones, gas, electricity, medicines, weapons and social media have now replaced their traditional way of life. Illness is a risk for a community increasingly unable to isolate itself from the modernization brought by white people or the power of the church. Ethnocide threatens to destroy their soul. With dogged persistence, Perpera, a former shaman, is searching for a way to restore the old vitality to his village.

After ten years abroad, Catherine returns to Luxembourg, to catch up with her daughter Alba, brought up by Catherine’s mother Elisabeth. Alba is cold and distant with this stranger showing up unexpectedly in her life, so is Elisabeth, keen to keep her protégée to herself. One day, Catherine cannot take it anymore. She kidnaps Alba and takes her on a trip to a lake up North. Begins an unsettling journey into the puzzling world of motherly love, only to find out that sometimes the true opponent is yourself.

The navy captain Avanti Planetaros is inspired by his astronomer-father to travel through outer space to reach other worlds. He becomes an aviator and, along with the young scientist Dr. Krafft, the driving force behind the construction of a space-ship. Despite oppostion from the mocking Professor Dubius, Planetaros gathers a crew of fearless men and takes off. During the long voyage, the crew becomes restless; a mutiny is narrowly avoided. Finally, they reach Mars and discover that the planet is inhabited by people who have reached a higher stage of development, free of diseases, sorrow, violence, sexual urges, and the fear of death. Avanti falls in love with Marya, daughter of the Prince of Wisdom, the head of the Martians. Marya shares his feelings and decides to return with him in order to bring the wisdom of the Martians to the backward Earthlings. (stumfilm.dk)

Hasret has been seeing the same nightmare for some time, but she keeps living unaware that what she sees is actually remembering. A 30-year-old woman who works in a News Channel, living alone in the flat left by her musician parents who died in a car crash twenty years ago. Is it? The question creeps into her mind, and then (or maybe even before) her life through recurring nightmares: Is it possible that her parents did not die in a car crash?

"I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians." These words, spoken in the Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. The film attempts to comment on this statement.

Three women, one family: Monika the mother, Angie the older sister and Kiki the baby of the family. Angie is a reality-TV star who is doggedly clinging onto her fading career. Fresh out of rehab, she suddenly finds herself without any money, friends or a place to live and is condemned to returning to her mother in her hated dump of a hometown. Angie's teenage sister Kiki is also finding life tough-going. Due to her epilepsy, her mother Monika insists that she wears a freaky protective helmet. The consequence: Kiki is ostracised and bullied, her life has long since become the hell from which her mother is trying to protect her.

For her first television film, director Vera wants the perfect cast. But the first day of shooting is fast approaching and the numerous casting sessions have yet to find a suitable actress to play the leading role. Although the producer and crew are getting ever more exasperated with Vera, Gerwin is happy about the extra work, as he earns his money as an audition reader, delivering the lines of dialogue to the starry candidates at the various castings. When the male lead suddenly has to back out, Gerwin thinks that this might just be his chance.