Goethe-Institut

Summer 1994, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two civil wars in only three years has torn the city apart and destroyed it. The town is split into a Croatian majority in the west and a Muslim majority locked in the east. An invisible wall divides the two areas. The EU appoints German social democrat Hans Koschnick as municipal administrator of the town in the hope of rekindling a sense of community there.

The beginnings, development and decline of so-called spaghetti-western genre; with clips, interviews and opinions of producers, actors and directors. A nostalgic look at those movies that are still in the taste of many.

This is not merely another film about cinema history; it is a film about the love of cinema, a journey of discovery through over a century of German film history. Ten people working in film today remember their favourite films of yesteryear.

In 1988, Cynthia Beatt and the young Tilda Swinton embarked on a filmic journey along the Berlin Wall into little-known territory. The film is now an unusual document. 21 years later, in June 2009, Beatt & Swinton re-traced the line of the Wall that once isolated West Berlin. This film depicts this poetic passage through varied landscapes, this time on both sides of the former Wall.

Documentary about filmmaker, author, director, and performance artist Christoph Schlingensief and his last major project, building an opera village in Burkina Faso. What was initially planned as a festival theater soon developed into a more ambitious idea, and in addition to the theater, a school, a hospital, and living quarters for teachers and nursing staff were also planned. Beginning with the search for a suitable building site, the film also recounts the difficulties encountered during the work and Schlingensief's advancing cancer.

A girl and a boy of eight and nine years old live in a lost village in the steppes. The school is four kilometers off-road. The boy's daddy dreams of building a snowmobile, and while the girl's mom drives them sometimes on a horse. So they quarrel, and reconcile for a long journey - like a little peasant with a woman. The reason is any - multiplication table, for example ...

The film reconstructs in Berlin a scene in front of the German consulate in Moscow, using a single and continuous camera shot, with no cuts. Russian immigrants are standing and waiting to get a visa; there's a different gate for each travel reason. Help and assistance is being offered in front of the entrances. A woman walks by the waiting line and is withheld: Her bag is too big and must be handed in. She looks for a place where she can leave it.

A documentary film, which focuses on the subject of women’s movement in the Philippines. Myth and legend overlap with history and politics as the women’s struggle is laid to bear in the individual stories and achievements of those featured in the film. The fragmented mosaic of voices and scenes allow for a plurality of views and opinions to account for the multifaceted and complex nature of Filipinas. From poetry to dance, politics to poetry – women chart their own lives in the auspicious event of change happening with the ascent of a woman to the country’s pinnacle of power.

Guided by the Jules Verne novel “Voyage au centre de la Terre”, four friends set out to explore Snaefellsjökul Volcano in Iceland. However, as they journeyed through the country recording sounds, they found themselves having a series of profound and transformative experiences that exceeded their original expectations. The result of their trip is an immersive audio-visual narrative titled “Journey to the Center of the Sound,” which not only guides the audience through diverse Icelandic landscapes, but also invites them to embark on their own sensory journey.

With the German Occupation in Greece (1941-1944) as a background, this film tells the love story between my father, an assistant professor at the mysterious German Scientific Institute of Athens - financed by the occupying power, Germany, but in reality a refuge for resistant students - and Nelly, a young student in Fine Arts. The film also traces the portrait of their friend Rudolf Fahrner, founder of the Institute, comrade of the Stauffenberg Brothers and one of the few conspirators of the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, on 20 July 1944, that survived the repression that followed.

"I am a stranger here,” “I am a foreigner,” “I don't speak German” are all phrases that can be learned in the Goethe Institute’s elaborately produced 26-part language course short film series, Guten Tag (Good Day). With a great deal of artistic imagination, scenes around “Language, Culture, Germany” are staged and slowly intoned in an effort to bring the newly arrived closer. In this final short film the protagonist graduates.

Perhaps her name is Maria: A woman with blonde curls listens to a caller in her New York apartment, moving between the couch and the kitchen floor, getting deeper and deeper into her surreal fantasies, in which she lustfully tries out different roles.

Love, anger, despair. All strong emotions. What happens when your love abandons you all of a sudden? Tina and Roy are a married couple. Tina's life turns upside down when one day, out of the blue, she finds herself having to accept the fact that Roy has left her for good. While she struggles with coming to terms with it, she battles her own fears and tries to make sense of things. On the day of her anniversary while she frets and wonders why he left her and how he is doing without her, the answer comes in an unexpected form.

On the 20th anniversary of the opening of crossing points, OVERCOMING tells the inspiring story of Cypriot women, queers, and antimilitarist cismen challenging militarism and gender norms. Through diverse interviews, the film explores how the opening and closing of the checkpoints, as the sole passageways between north and south, have impacted the lives of Cypriots while revealing their struggles against the ongoing division of the island and their efforts towards a more united future.

Facilitated by Echo Park Film Center, Hanoi Doclab and the Goethe Institute, The Sound We See: A Hanoi City Symphony invited a group of young Vietnamese filmmakers to explore their city on film, shooting with Super 8 cameras and processing/editing the images by hand.

The young poet Cristal Rocha, winner of the Slam Brasil 2017 circuit, reflects on what Censorship means for the Brazilian peripheral black population.

In 1948, the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed by the UN. Central point: The president’s widow and head of the commission, Eleanor Roosevelt. By using experimental animation and acting, the film re-enacts the discussions.

A restless lizard and a man move faster and faster to a punk beat.

Projects brings together short films by twenty filmmakers, Mischa Leinkauf diving into deep waters.