IFS Internationale Filmschule Köln GmbH

Once upon a time there was a girl called Helene. And because her father was king and her mother queen, she had to be a princess.

In 1938 an airfield was built at the northeastern-most end of America, the descent went slowly but incessantly through the Cold War. This is the story of how its inhabitants gradually moved away from the great world stage and had to reinvent themselves as well as their home town.

Three friends, a cabin in the woods and an invisible bear. Erik is suicidal out of conviction. His friends Alex and Ben take him to a cabin in the woods to get him back on his feet. When an old hunting rifle turns up, events take an unexpected turn. A movie about friendship, trust and schnitzel rolls.

Mr. Kremer's life seems narrow and dreary on the outside - he is unemployed and lives in a tiny apartment in the middle of the city. But on the inside, he enters the portal to another world. A journey begins that he is less and less able to separate from the outside world. An inner voice guides him and makes him predict numbers, which often leads to bizarre situations. The atmospheric film allows the viewer to participate in both the protagonist's floating perception and the discovery of his inner dimension.

True love never dies, the loving heart never stops beating ... for Kerstin’s ex Thomas, who she still hopes will come back some day. Instead of Thomas, her mother Charlotte shows up at her door, mid-50s and freshly single again, too. Charlotte moves in with Kerstin and her flatmates, one of who shows her how to use a modern dating app to meet new men. As mom starts dating again, her daughter refuses to let digital reality intrude on her romantic daydreams.

Sex is power, and Waseem, a Syrian gay-for-pay hustler seeking asylum in Cologne, wields it like a shield. Keeping his johns at an emotional arm’s length while satisfying their most carnal desires in order to eke out a living, he meets his match in Lars: a kind, affluent professional with a growing personal interest in Waseem. This gripping tale of transactional identity explores the tactical exchange of trust and intimacy in a partnership, and the divisions between immigrants and their host countries in contemporary Europe.

Azerbaijan. Yagub lives with his adult son Musa in a small house in a desolate place. They lead a solitary life. Musa, mentally disabled and limited in his motor skills, assists his father with his work. Yagub is a carpenter and earns his money especially with coffins, which he carpenters for Georgians and Russians. Whenever being confronted with the clumsiness of his son he often reacts indignantly – with beating. When Musa is diagnosed with a deadly illness, the emotional numbing of the father slowly dissolves as he tries to make the last days of his son as enjoyable as possible – until Sabir delivers a surprising message.

During her internship in a remote clinic in the Allgäu region, the young psychology student Lea immerses herself in a mysterious world of unorthodox therapy methods and demonic traditions.

A newcomer to a mental health unit wants to help his fellow patients. But instead of seeking healing through self-recognition, he builds castles in the air and thus becomes a great threat to his fellow sufferers and ultimately to himself.

Oliver has had an unsuccessful career in West Germany and returns to his East German home village. He now wants to sell the house where his mother died alone. His childhood friend Ronny helps him clean up the mess. But he can't admit his personal and professional failure to him either.

During the First World War, the battle reaches the small village and changes the fate of an elderly woman and her 12-year-old friend.

Germany, 1969: Retreating to his change room after a rather fabulous gig, British guitar- and song-writing-god Diesel Wilmington encounters Helmuth: Diesel-fan by trade. The unlikely pair - despite the barrier of language - engages in a rather odd conversation about the proper reading and origin of Diesel’s ingenious lines. It begins to dawn on Helmuth that his imaginations may have been somewhat highly-strung, as a stranger walks in; exposing the original mastermind as an overambitious double. What does this make of the autograph Helmuth was so eager to get?

While a married man waits in his lover's posh stairwell to pick her up for a date, his manifested guilty conscience, a dark shadow, plays its games with him.

Bianca Charamsa made her way to Japan during this year's cherry blossom season to get to grips with the country's character through conversations with some of its artists. Although two violent atomic catastrophes - the bombing of Hiroshima and the Fukushima nuclear disaster - have shaken and shaped modern-day Japan, the artist Takahiro Iwasaki believes that memory of 6th and 9th August 1945 is slowly fading, despite all the folded cranes left by visitors to the memorial sites. Natural catastrophes like sea- and earthquakes also rock Japan time and time again; perhaps this explains why the Japanese aesthetic Wabi Sabi incorporates both beauty and decay...much like the beauty of the cherry blossom as it withers during the annual festival of Hanami

Silvia (55) returns to her office job at a pharmaceutical company after a long illness. While she is happy to see her colleagues again, she discovers that her Login no longer works - Silvia is no longer in the system.

The old farmer Ammi tries to understand the traumatic loss of his friend, who died in a mysterious way. We follow him as he gets confronted by the demons of his past and he tries to overcome his fear.

Marianne and Isabel are two sisters confronted with sibling jealousy and smouldering problems from the past, while their mother is hoping for a life-saving kidney donation. Both sisters are potential donors and are faced with the decision of which of them will donate an organ to keep their mother alive.

Sometimes the decisions we are faced with take a completely unexpected turn. This is exactly what happens to Jürgen, a terminally ill man who is on his way to the last thrill of his life.

The life of artist Astrid is completely disrupted by her father, who suffers from dementia. His monologues and constantly repeating stories from another time get on her last nerve. Only when Astrid begins to listen to him and engage with his world, which has been distorted by dementia, do the two become closer again and Astrid begins to record his and their shared history as a comic.

How does mobility reflect social status and racism? A story of two African American women working to provide and improve mobility in their community, as they tell the history of the Safe Bus - formerly the biggest black-owned transportation system in the world.