FEATURE DOCUMENTARY – NEW DOCS

FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

CURRENT AFFAIRS / FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HUMAN INTEREST / MIPTV 2019

THE HORSE RESCUER – SPAIN’S FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY

With the collapse of the economy, thousands of Spanish horses were abandoned by their owners. Lois runs a rescue farm where she has been saving horses for the past ten years. We follow her as she goes about her daily work. During the building boom in Spain, horses became a new status symbol. People with no experience of horses suddenly saw an opportunity to breed valuable thoroughbreds for money. Then the crisis hit, demand declined and the owners had to […]
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ART / FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HUMAN INTEREST / MIPTV 2019

A SONG FOR AN UNKNOWN ACTRESS

Being an actress in L.A. is a demanding job on many levels. Five women show us what it really means to “follow your dreams” and demonstrate that happiness and success are not necessarily related. Driving from one audition to the next, reading for bit parts or commercials, updating social media channels, getting headshots done and working survival jobs on the side: Being an actress in Los Angeles is a demanding job on many levels. But despite the hardships and desperation, […]
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CURRENT AFFAIRS / FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / MIPTV 2019 / SOCIETY

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH

Pope Benedict XVI led the Catholic Church into its greatest crisis since the Reformation: the global child sex abuse scandal. We tell the story of his rise and fall which is symptomatic of the failings of the Church. We tell the story of a man who dedicated his life to preserving the Church but instead led it into its greatest crisis: Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. During his 30 years working within the Vatican he was the key figure in […]
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FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HUMAN INTEREST / MIPTV 2019

VILLAGE OF SWIMMING COWS

A docu-comedy about three neo-hippies from Berlin who move to a farm in Poland to be closer to nature. They meditate, practice acroyoga and shower in the garden. The villagers consider them complete eccentrics. To be close to nature and perhaps also to have a unique work experience Ellen, Mario and Jon, three neo-hippies from Berlin, set off for Poland. They rent an old wooden cottage from a farmer in a small village near the Belarusian border. They meditate, practice […]
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ARCHITECTURE / CULTURE / FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HISTORY / MIPTV 2019

GATEWAYS TO NEW YORK

Othmar Ammann, a Swiss-American structural engineer, designed more than half of the eleven bridges that connect New York City to the rest of the United States. We tell his adventure-filled story. The engineer Othmar Ammann left Switzerland in 1904 to redefine the art of bridge-building in America. He designed more than half of the eleven bridges that connect New York City to the rest of the United States. His constructions changed the face of New York forever. Beyond the life […]
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FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HISTORY / MIPTV 2019

THE FEMALE GUARD – THE CASE OF JOHANNA LANGEFELD

The story of Johanna Langefeld is the only known case of an SS guard being saved from a death sentence after the war by her own victims. In 1946, she escaped from a Cracow prison with the help of her former prisoners. In 1946, Johanna Langefeld, a former SS guard at Auschwitz and Ravensbrück concentration camps, escaped from a Cracow prison where she was awaiting trial and a death sentence. Langefeld’s escape was organised by some of her former victims […]
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FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HUMAN INTEREST / MIPTV 2019

HOW BIG IS THE GALAXY?

Seven-year-old Zakhar lives in the remote north of Siberia. This year, a teacher is moving in with his family to homeschool him. An observational film against a backdrop of the vast, snow covered tundra. The Zharkov family—father, mother and two young sons—belong to the Dolgan community, one of the last indigenous peoples pursuing their traditional nomadic life in the extreme north of Siberia. The children used to be sent to boarding school, where they became estranged from their family and […]
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FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HUMAN INTEREST / MIPCOM 2018 / SOCIETY

(M)OTHER

On her quest to find out what motherhood means for herself, director Antonia Hungerland encounters all kinds of people, none of whom seem to correspond to our traditional notion of a mother. What is a ‘real mother? Motherhood is the most natural thing in the world. Or so it’s said. Yet the demands on women with children have rarely been as challenging and contradictory as they are in the Western world today. Hopes of happiness are often followed by discrimination, […]
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FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / MIPCOM 2018 / SOCIETY

STRESS

Five veterans talk about their experiences of war and the process of adjusting to civilian life back home. We follow five young veterans from Pittsburgh who served in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. Joe, Torrie, Mike, James and Justin talk about their experiences of war and the process of adjusting to civilian life back home. Veterans make up only 2% of the US population, but they bear the physical and psychological burdens of all recent wars – a decade of […]
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FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / HISTORY / MIPCOM 2018

MEETING OF SPIES

While working as a cook, forester and car mechanic in the GDR, Norbert, Raimund and Eberhard spied for the West between the 1950s and 80s. They tell their extraordinary stories for the first time. The era of espionage during the Cold War is the stuff of countless novels and films. But little is known about the real spies. Some have passed away, many avoid the public because they are obliged to remain silent even after their active years. We tracked […]
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CHILDREN / FEATURE DOCUMENTARY / SERIES / SOCIETY

BEYOND BORDERS – STORIES OF FREEDOM AND FRIENDSHIP

How do we go about making films for children fleeing wars and crises? What can such films accomplish? What inspiration can the cinema give these children for their future? Can film work relieve suffering or even provide hope? A group of 7 young filmmakers from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, Colombia and Iran were selected to tackle these questions. The initial ideas have led to the creation of seven outstanding cinematic concepts, each of which reflects a deep understanding for and […]
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FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

KOLYMA – ROAD OF BONES

During the Stalin era, millions of prisoners lost their lives along the 2,000-km-long Kolyma highway in northeast Russia. Director Stanislaw Mucha follows the route in search of life there today. Kolyma highway – also known as „the Road of Bones“ or „the Route of Death“ – stretches 2,000 km through deepest northeast Russia. Built during the Stalin era between 1932 and 1953, it is lined with hundreds of labour camps set up after significant gold deposits were discovered in the […]
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