Pudding
D: Josua Tobias Krüger, DE 2016, 4'48”

A film with a morbid sense of humour which ruthlessly and with a good dose of exaggeration shows what getting old can mean. If even the way to the canteen of the retirement home becomes a horror trip...


Monica
D, ED: Dimitris Argyriou, CI: Lev Predan Kowarski, DE 2016, 5'

As a young girl, Monica used to dream of becoming a hairdresser. Unfortunately, her life went differently from what she had planned. Things went wrong. She became a victim of human trafficking and has been forced into prostitution. In the form of an intimate interview, the picture tells her dramatic story. The film is based on a real conversation.


Unterwegs mit Maxim Gorki / Travelling with Maxim Gorkiy   
D, CI: Kolja Kunt, Bernd Lützeler; DE 2014, 10’

As in many cases, also here it's rather about allusion than description. This also applies to the persons represented. Flat silhouettes of people. Their heads depicted in profile. Faces with no expression, formal gestures. In the background, a little bit of everyday life: the hard, square, stone architecture arises from ochre, brownish, blackish mush of colour or mud. A demonstration of the function of the central perspective. An idealised representation of a tropical paradise. Strangely, there's no absurdity in this.


Protokolle / Protocols
D, CI, ED: Jan Soldat, DE 2017, 19’

We all have dreams. What happens, however, when those longings radically intrude the taboo that society and culture impose upon us? A hair-raising psychological documentary by Jan Soldat portrays three men whose concealed fantasies will evoke disgust and shock in some viewers. The protagonists wish to be slaughtered, dismembered, and eaten. A more insightful audience member may find references to famous cannibalistic films (“Cannibal Holocaust,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Grimm Love”).


Sara the Dancer
D: Tim Ellrich, CI: Images out of Google Street View, ED: Maximilian Merth, Andreas Ribarits, DE/AT 2017, 12’30”

Sara is not a woman, she is a device: a Google Street View camera, who photographs streets from the top of a car. But when she listens to the music of driver Larry for the first time, something starts to shake in her. Deeply unsettled by this behaviour, she searches for help with the common Google Search. Google, which just wants the best for its users, only strengthens her desire. Quickly, this leads to an existential conflict with the actual camera use.


Emergency Turned Upside-Down
D, ED: Oliver Ressler, AN: Studio Orlinder Krinkel, AT 2016, 16’13”

“Emergency Turned Upside-Down” was shaped by the “summer of migration” of 2015, when the Schengen system was suspended for several weeks and wealthy European states temporarily opened their borders to refugees. The film is a bold animation where the viewer's focus is rewarded with a spectacle of graphic possibilities, a chain of surprising connotations, and a universal message. Reflections upon a potentially imagined borderless world raises an incredibly important question about the possibility of pulling away from the reality we know, where the rhythm is established by boundaries.


Tim & Tom
D: Lutz Gottschalk, DE 2015, 4'47”

The two brothers Tim and Tom are on the brink of robbing a gas station. While they go through their plan one last time, things go wrong. Can these inexpert criminals still succeed in the heist?