z'Bärg(2016)

Paul Tomkowicz: Street Railway Switchman(en)

In this film, Paul Tomkowicz, Polish-born Canadian, talks about his job and his life in Canada. He compares his new life in the city of Winnipeg to the life he knew in Poland, marvelling at the freedom Canadians enjoy. In winter the rail-switches on streetcar tracks in Winnipeg froze and jammed with freezing mud and snow. Keeping them clean, whatever the weather, was the job of the switchman.

Fight(hy)

In a conservative Armenian family a 16 years old Karine dreams to become a veterinarian, but her family, especially her father, who is a well-known dog-fighter, is against it. They say it’s not a proper job for women. Karine needs to choose: to follow her dreams or to listen to her patriarchal family.

Werner We Love You(de)

When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.

Verso L'Ignoto(it)

Stop for Bud(da)

Stop for Bud is Jørgen Leth's first film and the first in his long collaboration with Ole John. […] they wanted to "blow up cinematic conventions and invent cinematic language from scratch". The jazz pianist Bud Powell moves around Copenhagen -- through King's Garden, along the quay at Kalkbrænderihavnen, across a waste dump. […] Bud is alone, accompanied only by his music. […] Image and sound are two different things -- that's Leth's and John's principle. Dexter Gordon, the narrator, tells stories about Powell's famous left hand. In an obituary for Powell, dated 3 August 1966, Leth wrote: "He quite willingly, or better still, unresistingly, mechanically, let himself be directed. The film attempts to depict his strange duality about his surroundings. His touch on the keys was like he was burning his fingers -- that's what it looked like, and that's how it sounded. But outside his playing, and often right in the middle of it, too, he was simply gone, not there."

Porno Unplugged(en)

Journalist Fabian Burstein looks behind the curtains of the porn industry. Starting in Budapest he heads westwards to explore a new world on its victory march rooted deeply in Austria. On this journey he meets the heroes and leading actors of this story: Austrians Mick Blue, Renee Pornero and Thomas Janisch. Porno Unplugged follows its native porn stars to where their lives happen. From east to west...

The Three Michaels(en)

Desperate to become as rich and successful as their idol, a trio of Michael Jackson impersonators hustle their way into Hollywood agencies, are accosted by paparazzi, and cross paths with Grammy-winning musicians as the American dream seems tantalisingly close. But as they perform for dollar bills and sleep in their car, the reality of the ruthless entertainment industry they dream about hits home.

Belmondo, le magnifique(fr)

With more than 70 films and 160 million cumulative tickets in France, Jean-Paul Belmondo is one of the essential stars of French cinema.

The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner(de)

A study of the psychology of a champion ski-flyer, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.

Little Girl(fr)

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

Katka(cs)

“You bet on someone in the beginning of the process and then you wait and see what life does with them.” This is how Czech director Helena Trestikova explains her long-term documentaries. Following on from the European Film Academy Award winning RENE (2008), Trestikova brings us KATKA – 14 years in the life of a drug addict. KATKA is an extraordinarily raw and uncensored character portrait of a troubled young woman living on the edge of human existence, desperately searching for love and salvation. Will she find it in the rehab? Will she find it in the arms of the man she loves? Or in the first cry of her long-desired baby? Tagging along with her through the back streets and squalors of Prague, Trestikova gets deep under the skin of a person most of us would cross the road to avoid, and shows us Katka’s profoundly human face. You might be angry with Katka, or your heart may go out to her. One thing is certain – you will never forget her.

Lorena: Light-Footed Woman(es)

A young woman of the Tarahumara, well-known for their extraordinary long distance running abilities, wins ultramarathons seemingly out of nowhere despite running in sandals.

Topo estrellado(es)

Hideaway(cs)

Documentary portrait of the poet Karla Erbová is a confession of a creative personality who, despite many twists and turns in life, remains true to her ideals and moral values. We witness the final year of the author's life, during which, even at the age of ninety, she continues to engage in public appearances and, above all, actively works on her craft. Through letters that Erbová wrote to her friend, the film offers an intimate, often self-deprecating reflection on old age, solitude, and relationships with loved ones, as well as an indomitable faith in poetry. The film "Ulita" not only highlights the pivotal moments of her life but also serves as a sociological exploration of the lives of the oldest generation.

Black Mother(en)

Part film, part baptism, in BLACK MOTHER director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and tranquil countryside, Allah introduces us to a succession of vividly rendered souls who call this island home. Their candid testimonies create a polyphonic symphony, set against a visual prayer of indelible portraiture. Thoroughly immersed between the sacred and profane, BLACK MOTHER channels rebellion and reverence into a deeply personal ode informed by Jamaica’s turbulent history but existing in the urgent present.

Igor Levit: No Fear(de)

Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.

Kilian Jornet, Path to Everest(en)

Surrounded by the mountains and people who are his inspiration, in ‘Path to Everest’, the mountain athlete Kilian Jornet reveals his most intimate fears, contradictions and passions. Summits of My Life is the personal project of Kilian Jornet, in which for five years he has traveled to some of the most important peaks of the planet to try to establish FKT (fastest known time) of ascent and descent of some of the most emblematic mountains of the world. The project is closely linked to values and a way of understanding the purist and minimalist mountain. The experiences lived in each challenge have been captured in different films.

Cyrille(fr)

Cyrille, a young gay farmer from Auvergne, has only one friend, a homosexual like him. One day, he goes on vacation to a beach in Charente Maritime. He cannot swim and sees the sea for the first time. It was there that he met the director Rodolphe Marconi who decided to devote this sensitive and gentle portrait to him, plunging us into an agricultural world in crisis and into a life often lonely and made up of hard work rarely pays off.

Things of a Lifetime, Intimate Archeological Exercises(fr)

The filmmaker’s grandmother moved into this house in 1971. When Rolande Ségalini died, everything remained as it was during her lifetime. But what to do with all the accumulated things? As her granddaughter Céline begins to film this material legacy, she realises that her grandmother has remained an enigma to her to this day. Room by room, she inventories, classes, counts, sorts the possessions retrieved from wardrobes, drawers, cabinets and boxes and arranges the objects into new still lives. It is an attempt to understand the deceased woman better and find out more about her. Step by step, the heiress discovers various connections to France’s colonial history.

Ivan the Terrible(de)

Ivan, first tsar of Russia. History will remember him as "the Terrible. Russian people love him for centuries. He liberates Russia from foreign oppressors, demands absolute obedience and loyalty in order to radically modernise Russia? Ivan IV, Grand Duke of Moscow, first Tsar of Russia by the grace of God. A madman? A sadist?