RosenPictures

Filmmakers talk about their experiences - about success, failure and social participation. Who is seen, and who can show themselves?

The film UMBRA deals with rare and common optical phenomena that occur in nature. These phenomena evoke familiar images such as shadows or reflections on a water surface; but also unusual ones like the "Brocken spectre" or the pinhole effect during a solar eclipse. These ancient and natural projections can be considered as precultural and independent of any apparatus. They occured even before mankind and are united by their intangible, ephemeral presence. In their immateriality and fragility, they are precursors of the cinema image. UMBRA develops a visual dialogue between phenomenon and apparatus, archetype and image, self and self-perception.

For eight months, Ole Jacobs’s and Arne Büttner’s film team followed the Afghan Nasim and her family in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, where at times 20,000 people had to live in a space designed for less than 3,000 people. This documentary observation shows with great empathy the daily life of the mother of two who time and again manages to deal impressively with the challenges of this unacceptable and extreme situation.

Oscillating between aesthetic and documentary forms, Kaltes Tal describes the daily business of a strip mine harvesting lime. The material removed is processed and returned to nature through forest liming. This measure attempts to counteract acid rain that troubles the forest floor. A cycle like a Mobius strip – an irreversible consequence due to the mining materials in order to restore the fragile natural balance. Lime dust delicately dusts the forest floor. A white, spherical alternative world opens, questioning our ambivalent relationship to nature.

The film accompanies an Afghan teenager who was raised as a boy according to the tradition of "Bacha Posh" on her search for her identity in Germany.