Bettina Blickwede

The Tara is a river on the outskirts of Taranto whose waters are believed to have healing properties; bathing there is a tradition for the inhabitants of the city. Starting from this bucolic place, Volker Sattel and Francesca Bertin take us on a journey through a territory where myths clash with reality and where so-called “progress” has taken a heavy toll on nature and society.

It starts with "Peter Schlemihl's Miraculous Story", which tells of a man travelling the world in seven-league boots. Adelbert von Chamisso wrote the tale before setting off to Russia on scientific expedition in 1815. He analysed the flora of Alaska and then explored the Northwest Passage, just like Cook and voyager Bering had done previously, the latter with physician and naturalist Steller in tow. A porthole reveals the view. Thus begins Ottinger's journey from Alaska to Kamchatka via Chukotka, with her predecessors’ log books to accompany her on her way.

Unannounced, Aziza is once again standing in her room – internship, Portugal, everything canceled. But her room is occupied. Her mother, Trixi, has rented it out. Zach lives there now, a twenty-something from New Zealand, who came to Germany on a one-way ticket. Starting from this situation, the film develops an almost documentary-style portrait of a Kreuzberg ‘situation’: everything is readily available, time, people, summer, streets. And in the end a crash, the film itself: ‘for nothing’?

In Echigo in Japan the snow often lies several feet deep well into May covering landscape and villages. Over the centuries the inhabitants have organised their lives accordingly. In order to record their very distinctive forms of everyday life, their festivals and religious rituals Ulrike Ottinger journeyed to the mythical snow country – accompanied by two Kabuki performers. Taking the parts of the students Takeo and Mako they follow in the footsteps of Bokushi Suzuki who in the mid-19th century wrote his remarkable book “Snow Country Tales”.

막 교도소에서 출감한 트로얀. 그는 불빛이 명멸하는 밝은 도시를 뒤로 하고, 다시 범죄자의 삶으로 복귀한다. 오랜 동료들과 현금수송차량 탈취를 계획하는 그. 그러나 부패경찰 메이어가 이들을 미행하고, 이전 동료인 바우어는 부하들에게 트로얀의 제거를 지시한다. 불신과 배신, 폭력이 거미줄처럼 엮인 비열한 어둠의 세계. 이제 트로얀은 그 속에서 스스로를 지켜야만 한다.

Berlin in the 3rd millenium. Rather by chance Kai Starel gets into the newly founded CC Institute "Carl Celler Culture", where hip creative minds buzz around in bleak spaces and think about company logos with animals. This brings up art, campaigns or something inbetween - and a liaison between the designer queen Rena Yazka (Sabine Timoteo) and Kai, who becomes her model.

All summer long, a group of people circumnavigate each other. A group of people who are so close and yet so alienated from one another. Their isolated holiday home is the site for a resurgence of smouldering conflicts and lifelong illusions that threaten to wreck the family’s fragile unity forever.

Ulrike Ottinger’s documentary Prater (Austria-Germany), a half-decade in the making, chronicles over the past century and more the attractions that contributed to the rise and fall of Prater, the world’s oldest amusement park.

Aus der Ferne is a personal travelogue, a documentary about a trip through Turkey. Thomas Arslan, who filmed the journey himself, undertook the trip in May/June 2005. The route takes him through Istanbul and Ankara to Gaziantep in the southeastern part of the country, from there further eastwards via Diyarbakir and Van to Dogubayazit near the Iranian border. The film describes moments during the journey that differ from the usual motifs that inform the image of present-day Turkey – from impressions of day-to-day life in such Western cities as Istanbul and Ankara all the way to regions in the country’s easternmost territory that were locked in battle until recently.

The film TWELVE CHAIRS linked in a spectacular way the dramaturgy of a treasure hunt and chase with a dense imagery of people and places. It tells both of yesterday and today, the reality of the people in the CIS countries and the universal humanity of our own actions. Large social utopia thus mixes with the individual hope of personal happiness, be it through money or in love.

Documentary about the german police force.

A woman faces a variety of emotional crises as she spends the summer interacting in various ways with friends, family, and lovers.

A day in the life of the 21 years old Deniz, who aims to become an actress and makes her living by dubbing movies. After she has split with her old boyfriend she gets to know Diego and spends the evening with him.

좌파 테러리스트였던 부모로 인해 15년간 항상 쫓기는 생활을 해야 하는 잔느는 다른 십대소녀들처럼 유행하는 옷도 입지 못하고 남자 친구도 사귀지 못한다. 호텔에서 가지고 있던 돈을 잃게 되자 이들은 어쩔 수 없이 독일로 돌아가게 되는 상황에 처하게 된다.

Can and his girlfriend, Jale, live with their young daughter, Meral, in a tough Turkish neighbourhood of Berlin and barely manage to scrape enough money together for their existence. Can is a small-time dealer and errand-boy for drug boss Hakan, who has to keep his customers supplied within his narrowly staked out territory. Jale, who works in the ware-house of a department store, has been pressing Can to give up this activity. Can, also fed up with his situation, sees a bright new beginning for himself and his family when Hakan offers him the prospective chance to run a bar on his very own. But Can has little control over the pressures that gradually begin to build up around him and soon finds himself floundering in quicksand.

Thomas Arslan's second feature film and part of his Berlin-trilogy is a slow-paced milieu study of German-Turkish youth in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The film depicts the every day life, domestic conflicts, dreams and disappointments of three siblings and their aimless, meandering strolls through the Kreuzberg district.