Rainer Komers

The follow-up film to “Barstow, California” takes us to the mountains of Miyama, a remote forest and tourist area north of Kyoto. Uwe Walter, a shakuhachi player from Germany, lives there with his wife Mitsuyo for 30 years. Together with the villagers he prepares the annual Gion Festival. On the eve of the festival, the village representatives tell him that his self-built studio is to be demolished. This brings back memories for him of earlier times and his first steps as a Nō actor. In the manner of a fresco, the film interweaves rural depictions of everyday life with the story of its German protagonist. In the village community with its togetherness of generations, Uwe shares life with his neighbours, with farmers, hunters, woodsmen, poultry farmers and anglers, tills his kitchen garden, and like other tradition-conscious villagers, he also grows his rice. The film shows them in a harsh mountain landscape between the rainy season and the first snow.

The film presents artists from the Sinti and Roma minority who shape the trauma of persecution and very personal experiences in their works.

For more than eight decades, German Sinti and Roma experienced injustice. The film tells of the family of activist Romani Rose, their resistance and insistence on justice. The painful story of a minority between trauma and self-assertion. The two-part film deals with various forms of resistance by German and Austrian Sinti and Roma over eight decades. It is about rebellion against injustice and the insistence on dignity and justice.

In 1950, Picasso was offered a room that had once been used as a chapel in his hometown of Vallauris. He pictured turning it into a “pagan site for a unique cult” that would “unite all the people and be dedicated to peace.”

Documentary about a small town in California.

Documentary about a small town in California.

Documentary about people and landscapes in northern Germany.

Just like in a focus of a lens the northern suburbs of Riga show the opportunities, the contradictions and risks characteristic for each highly developed civilization in its in-between zone of "post" - in this case - post-Soviet, post-industrial, postmodern period. And just like any other coastal area Daugava delta can offer not only fresh fish and wind but also wide horizon and endless sky.

Just like in a focus of a lens the northern suburbs of Riga show the opportunities, the contradictions and risks characteristic for each highly developed civilization in its in-between zone of "post" - in this case - post-Soviet, post-industrial, postmodern period. And just like any other coastal area Daugava delta can offer not only fresh fish and wind but also wide horizon and endless sky.

Seven versions of Riga, the city on the Baltic Sea, and its features as seen by outstanding European film directors: Sergei Loznitsa (The Old Jewish Cemetery), Ivars Seleckis (On Ķīpsala), Audrius Stonys (Riga Boats), Jaak Kilmi (Littering Prohibited!), Jon Bang Karlsen (Cats in Riga), Rainer Komers (Daugava Delta), and Bettina Henkel (Theatre Street 6).

Seven versions of Riga, the city on the Baltic Sea, and its features as seen by outstanding European film directors: Sergei Loznitsa (The Old Jewish Cemetery), Ivars Seleckis (On Ķīpsala), Audrius Stonys (Riga Boats), Jaak Kilmi (Littering Prohibited!), Jon Bang Karlsen (Cats in Riga), Rainer Komers (Daugava Delta), and Bettina Henkel (Theatre Street 6).

Documentary on a mining town in Montana.

Documentary about a small town in Yemen.

Peter Nestler's poetic documentary Verteidigung der Zeit is not only an hommage to Jean-Marie Straub's and Danièle Huillet's film Quei loro incontri (2005), but also to their access to cinema itself. In various encounters and conversations Nestler offers an insight into their life and work, including passages from Italian poet Cesare Pavese.

Experimental documentary about Kobe, Japan.

Experimental documentary about landscape, roads and buildings in Alaska.

The revolt at Sobibór extermination camp in October 1943 is a central episode of resistance against national socialism. Thomas «Toivi» Blatt, son of a Jewish businessman, was 15 when he was deported to Sobibór. Blatt was among those who managed to escape during the uprising only to find his newly found freedom deceptive when old friends and neighbours refused to help. Director Peter Nestler accompanied Toivi Blatt on his trips through Poland.

Documentary on the final days of the final days of the German government before its relocation to Berlin.

“This film is about the indigenous cultures of Ecuador, of what is past and what is preserved, of destruction and resistance, of persisting in new ways, of music in the villages high up in the Andes, of music in the cities and in a tropical climate among descendants of African slaves. The film is about Earth, about working with Earth, sacred to the indigenous people. An account of beauty that silences, of friendliness, also grief.” (Nestler)

Nestler traces the history of Frankfurt’s Jewish ghetto from the middle ages to the present day.

Second bandoneon film by Klaus Wildenhahn.

A film about the connection of workers and the bandoneon in the Ruhr region.