
In 2002, Lana Kaiser became well known in the first season of the German version of the Idol television franchise. She was born in 1985 and went by her birth name Daniel Küblböck. At only 17 years old she polarised the audience with her androgynous appearance and open bisexuality. On September 9th 2018, Lana disappeared from a cruise ship on her way to North America. Most media outlets and the majority of the public didn‘t consider calling her by her chosen name, Lana Kaiser. Philipp Gufler's video installation is a personal portrait of the singer and entertainer.
The film shows the bronze door of Bernward of Hildesheim in its individual fields. The door shows Old and New Testament stages of the events of salvation: from the creation of man to the fratricide of Abel; from the angel's proclamation to Mary to the presentation of Jesus in the temple, the capture of Jesus to the encounter of the risen Christ with Mary Magdalene. Careful camera work - supported by careful lighting - succeeds in doing justice to the monumental size of the work.
Four documentary scenes with subtitles document the year 1917 as the beginning of a new era. In addition to the military situation and the supply situation in Germany, the intervention of the USA and the events in Russia are shown in particular.
10.0The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.
0.0A grandmother faintly narrates her quilts, as seen through the warped glass lens of a broken camera, a laptop webcam, and a clunky Xerox scanner.
We meet big Jack Taylor, who hasn’t left his little flat in Bradford, West Yorkshire for 25 years. Jack’s become something of a celebrity, with German camera crews flocking to visit him. But the last time Jack got weighed was many years ago, and then he clocked in at 48 stone. So how much does he weigh now? We’re introduced to Barry, a young man of 41 stone. Barry makes nightclub appearances and talks about the fame that fatness brings. But now he’s determined to lose weight and consults his doctor to discuss medication and diet. Meanwhile, Jack talks about the tragic deaths in his past and his decision to stop inside the house for a quarter of a century. Eventually Barry and Jack meet to discuss the impact of the media on their lives. Determined to confirm Jack as Britain’s fattest man, the director eventually coaxes Jack onto a vast set of scales. So who is the fattest man in Britain? The tale of the scales causes surprise and quivering outrage…
A documentary covering the making of Chicken Run.
6.5Searching for the root of generational trauma, the director takes a camera into his estranged grandfather’s funeral.
5.2The role of African Americans in the recovery years of the Great Depression is the subject of this informational short, which offers an idealized depiction of life in a segregated society. The highlight, by far, is rare footage of Orson Welles’s “Voodoo Macbeth,” produced in 1935 for the New York Negro Unit of the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project.
3.0At the crossroads of documentary and fiction, Hello Stranger relates the transition journey of a young trans woman named Cooper Josephine. With humor, the film revisits key moments of her life from her childhood in a small fishing village of the east coast of Canada to her tumultuous medical process. Through the re-enactment of her memories, Cooper Josephine attempts to make peace with the last masculine imprint on her body: that unfortunate deep voice that sticks to her skin.
6.8Actor Bela Lugosi discusses his career, his social life, and his feelings about his most famous role, Count Dracula.
6.0Sicily, Granitola, 1955. At the first light of dawn, the fishermen set out in their boats for open water, timing the rhythm of their oars to murmured chants. They set their nets in the sea, regulate the cords, organize the boats in a square. The men’s work becomes increasingly harder as the tuna are hoisted onto the boats, wriggling, beating their tails until death arrives and the water is tinged with blood.
4.6Amidst the hills of the ancient city of Mtskheta, an aging man nearing his hundredth year is forced to make way for a new road being paved through the blossoming garden of floral delights that he loves and cares for.
4.7Documentary of the Rustavi Metal Works, in the country of Georgia.
3.0Affectionate, experimental short documentary that paints a mosaic of Cuba by focusing on a microcosmic "old neighborhood", where the country's personality slowly emerges through its various dualities: young and old, day and night, sound and silence, Christianity and Santería, civilian life and military presence, poverty and abundance.
8.5Based on the career of Roberto Dinamite, Vasco da Gama's biggest idol, we explore the magic of the goal and the connection with the stands in the figure of a player who personified the spirit of the club and its fans on the field
6.5A sort of documentary on the people known to have fallen out of windows in a certain time frame in a certain geographical location. One of Greenaway's early short films.
In Natpwe, the feast of the spirits, co-directors Tiane Doan na Champassak and Jean Dubrel have produced an immersive, seemingly timeless document of an annual Burmese trance ritual that dates back to the eleventh century. Shot in Super 8 and 16mm in sooty black and white, the film conveys the astonishing sense of liberation of tens of thousands of bodies and minds — a mass expression of faith, but also a rapturous respite from societal intolerance.
9.0From leaving Egypt 10 years ago, to almost dying a month ago in a car accident. This film is about the journey in between and the massive role the internet played in the life of prominent Youtuber and Yes Theory co-founder Ammar Kandil.
![Lana Kaiser [Trailer] by Philipp Gufler, 2020](https://img.youtube.com/vi/716765671/sddefault.jpg)