Focus Programmes 2019

FOCUS PROGRAMMES 2019

Chances at Risk

A fair chance for a good life. No more and no less is what the young protagonists aim to find – not always in line their parents’ expectations, they explore new paths of emancipation – either through education, new gender attributions and cultural innovations.

While Harry reminds us about illiteracy within the so-called western world and the social divisions that come with it (H is for Harry), Ghorban demonstrates what it means, when a lack of political willpower neglects the chances for a new start after migration (Coeur de Pierre). In Before Father gets back and Snowy Roads we witness how patriarchal structures and traditional gender roles make equality impossible for girls even in the 21^st Century. In The next Guardian youthful spirit of renewal meets established family traditions in Bhutan and we discover astonishing similarities to our own ways of growing up.

Films

---

Families at Risk

What are the challenges when dealing with the history of your own family? In the focus program Families at Risk we present movies of filmmakers, who audio-visually trace their own family histories. These are stories often closely interwoven with global political questions and societal change.

There is the search for traces of ones own grandmother in the historical embroilments of the Japanese-Korean war (Yukiko), the tracking down of the family´s role in the former communist regime of Bulgaria (I see red People) and the questioning of a daughter-father relationship in the context of Catholic missionary work and development aid in Nigeria (Rote Erde Weißer Schnee). In Mamacita and Dans l’Oeil du Chien, we follow the filmmakers´ attempts of assessing the past of their grandmothers that confront their families and us, the audience, with the full range of emotions.

Films

---

Filmmakers at Risk

How much risk is it worth taking to make a film? In five films we meet those who literally exposed themselves to high personal and political dangers to realise their films and share their stories with us.

We find ourselves in the midst of street battles in Kinshasa (Kinshasa Makambo), violent protests in Kashmir (After Prayers) and experience the bombing of Damascus through the lens of the camera of three young men (Daraya – A Library under Bombs). With the Oscar nominated film Of Fathers and Sons we immerse ourselves in the life of a radical Islamist family and in the world premiere of Dialogue we accompany a Kurdish filmmaker and his mother on their way into the Syrian civil war in search of the missing brother and Son. But it is not the already known images of these conflicts that leave us astonished, but the deeply human stories, which we get to know thanks to the high personal commitment of the filmmakers.

Films

---

Futures at Risk

Colonial hegemonies still exist. This is reflected in the threats indigenous communities experience around the world. They are still the oppressed and disempowered, the displaced and the uprooted. But they are not passive victims of history, but rather with their quest for self-determination and cultural preservation represent those values ​​that are important not only for themselves and their cultural survival but also for the future sustainability and ecological preservation of the planet.

The journey in these films takes us from Thailand (I am Golden Karen) to Borneo (Be ‘Jam Be – The Never Ending Song) and Tahiti (Ma’Ohi Nui, In the Heart of the Ocean My Country lies) and across the Pacific to Colombia (Thinking Like A Mountain) and Ecuador (Spears form all Sides).

Films

---

Progress at Risk

Populism, freedom, safety and the drawing of new boundaries within societies. This focus program is dedicated to those “great themes of the global community”, which make us question the meaning of “progress” in relation to its political, ecological and humane dimensions.

Brexitannia tells about the harmful consequences of short-sighted populist politics and seemingly simple solutions through the construction of borders. In a similar scenario we meet the people in Welch, West Virginia, who, in their everyday life as so-called losers of the globalisation, place all their hopes on Trump (The time to go has come and gone). Remapping the Origins takes us to the roots of the European idea as well as its conflictual and visionary history. In the reflection of the past we discover current questions concerning the European ideal situated at risk. Beautiful Things holds a mirror to the western consumer society, turbo capitalism and the mania of economic growth in a playful and surprising way. Taste of Cement sheds light on an otherwise often hushed up topic, namely: the deprivation of rights of migrant workers living a life in modern slavery in service of growth at any cost.

Films