Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln

The tower block area "Am Kölnberg" has a bad reputation. People who - for any number of reasons - ended up on the edge of society, live here alongside refugee families and immigrants from all over the world. Unemployment, drug abuse and prostitution are part of everyday life for many of them. The film accompanies 4 people over a period of two years and portrays their life at "Kölnberg" with ups and downs. One thing they all have in common: The dream of leading a fulfilled life, far away from "Kölnberg".

Keywan receives a call from a woman in Iran asking him to find her son Ashkan in Cologne, whom she hasn't reached for three days. Despite having minimal interaction with Ashkan, Keywan accepts the request.

After taking on a questionable assignment from a major pharmaceutical company, graphic designer Victoria is plagued by a guilty conscience that haunts her in the form of an advertising mascot she designed herself, which has come to life.

After an argument with his mother, 12-year-old Dan, who suffers from scoliosis, seeks love and intimacy from 17-year-old Anna, who is supposed to look after him. While his mother, who works for a security company, is on the night shift, Dan and Anna cross set boundaries.

After committing a robbery, three young criminals plan their next heist. The euphoria of those first moments gradually gives way to repressed longings and conflicting emotions. They begin to have doubts about their plan.

Dani, a young Cuban, lives in Havana with his grandmother Yuya. When his girlfriend becomes pregnant, the young woman's family demands an abortion... because Dani is black.

Hillbrow, a Johannesburg district bristling with buildings, on whose concrete reverberates the incessant maelstrom of street sounds. This overpopulated suburb, where life is cheap, is the playground of Tebogo and Karabo. Aged around fifteen, not very interested in school, in conflict with their mothers who are raising them alone and leave them a little to themselves, the two friends spend the summer relieving their boredom as best as they can. When they are not mixing with the groups of their elders, dancing in underground car parks or drifting through the urban hell, they seem to watch over the city by seeking refuge on the roof of their block.

In a hot summer during the Covid pandemic, the property management decides to renovate Karsten’s apartment and evicts him. Whether he’ll be able to quickly find something new in Cologne is uncertain. But Karsten remains relaxed. He packs his mattress into the borrowed moving van and turns it into an improvised home. Sophie and Miray also urgently need a place to live and join Karsten. For a while, their set-up seems perfect. However, a few days turn into months. Too much closeness and the impending autumn chill take a toll on the three of them.

Friends Toro and Victor struggle with drug addiction and male prostitution in a hostile environment. When they lose all their money, their longstanding friendship is put to the test.

In her loneliness, the young masseuse Camille experiences an everyday life, determined by rules and constraints. Not able to accept herself, she retires in isolation. Camille's controlled life changes only by the secret observation of her neighbor, who awakens her sexual fantasies, and gives her the courage to change.

Somewhere in Argentina: as an eclipse of the sun is predicted and the surrounding forest continues to be devastated by logging, only a few women and a little boy are left to fend for themselves. When everything collapses, one clings to the slightest hint of vitality.

Separated by the realities of their day to day lives, the twins Rebecca and Carlo find themselves forced to co-habit and find closure to a chapter in their young lives. A thin line between intimacy and unfamiliarity, they are confronted with a shared past and the fragility of their memories.

When a married woman discovers her husband's addiction to visiting brothels, she decides to start visiting them herself and is quickly swept up into a secret life filled with new sexual discoveries.

In a cold future world everybody who is single drops dead. Which means that Tim - who recently got dumped by his girlfriend - has a serious problem. None of the women he meets at a speed dating event strike a chord with him. His last chance is Denise - or better said a typo called Dennis. As to Tim being straight, hey, there's a pill for that. Or is there?

2032: Putin is dead. Russia has lost the war against Ukraine. Alex, the son of Russian political refugees, returns to the land of collective amnesia with his German friend because he has inherited his deceased grandmother's apartment. But the neighbors are after the apartment. While the unsuspecting Alex waits for the police, their recent past - our present - erupts in everyday conflicts. Only the neighbor's daughter remembers her childhood friend.

Starting from the destroyed grave of my mother, a search begins for the remaining apparitions. A mourning ceremony, a movement of remembrance, attempts at resuscitation. ghosting mother works with methods of autofiction and deals with questions of mourning and its ritualization in bourgeois catholic contexts in an experimental documentary form.

After getting stuck between life and death Alice accidentally binds herself to Megs. Together the unlikely pair set out to take revenge

Jakob is really a woman, but the superstitious villagers are obsessed with the idea that Jakob has to be a man in order to protect the village from a great calamity. Jakob has never been in any doubt about this destiny. She lives an isolated existence on a lonely farm. One day Jakob takes on Tom at the farm. Tentatively, the two come closer...

Every weekend at an illegal drag show in the suburbs of Havana, Sebastián, a 17-year-old Cuban teenager, transforms into 'Mila Caos', his empowered, flamboyant alter-ego. When he returns to his daytime self, Sebastián suffers from his mother's indifference, dreaming that one day she will see him on stage for who he truly is.

A tourist exposed to heat in an all-inclusive hotel; a family father injured in his masculinity; and a packer who succumbs to a Sisyphean task while delivering a closet. Three short events merge to a novel about powerlessness during summer season at the Turkish Aegean Sea, where overheating, shame and class conditions belong to the burden of everyday life in a deeply divided society.