Carlotta cannot see faces, not even her own. For her, human faces are no bastion of trust, but places of fear and confusion. Filmmaker and neuroscientist Valentin Riedl travels through Carlotta’s universe, full of anthropomorphic animals, lucid dreams and bumpy false paths. Her never-ending search for answers leads her to art—and thus an avenue to her own face and back to humanity.
This author-driven documentary starts with the personal story of Mina, the director of the film. She unveils a family secret by telling the story of her grandmother, a woman she never met who died under mysterious circumstances. Her personal story and other women who share their experiences shows how Iran’s patriarchal system instils fear in women in public spaces and in the home.
A 14-year old Moroccan girl, Fatima Osaadan, is tortured to death by the family she was working for as a housemaid. We enter the background of a cruel murder and give an insight into Moroccan society from two opposing perspectives: The archaic, penurious world from which the young servants come and the world of the urban social climbers.
We accompany one of the world’s most renowned transgender surgeons and his patients, each of them in a different stage of their gender reassignment. What makes people set off on this journey despite all the pain and unresolved questions? A film full of feeling that lets us experience the full spectrum and radicalness of this transition.
Prosperity on the one side, misery on the other: just how directly the two can be connected comes to light in Luzia Schmid’s film about the meteoric rise of her hometown of Zug upon becoming a tax haven.
In the 1990s, Spanish war photographer Gervasio Sánchez documented the lives of children in besieged Sarajevo. 25 years later he returns and confronts today’s adults with images from that time. What became of them? What was it like growing up after the war? An often overwhelming encounter with the past
What is consciousness? Is it in all living beings? Why are we predisposed for mystical experience? And what happens when we die? AWARE follows six brilliant researchers approaching the mystery from radically different perspectives, opening as a science film but emerging beyond the explicable.
The distance between human and nature, which leads us to make catastrophic miscalculations in how we treat our environment, can be overcome with the help of preserved animal specimens. This is the conviction of the three taxidermists we accompany as they prepare for the European Taxidermy Championships.
At the Mosaik art studio in Berlin, artists with disabilities are absorbed in their work. Filmmaker Sabine Herpich observes the artists in the course of creation and directs her gaze at the institution itself: its processes, staff and spaces. The film succeeds in maintaining its focus on the art itself rather than the handicaps of its creators.
From the perspective of his son Jiří Mucha, the film tells the story of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), one of the pioneers of the Art Nouveau movement. Featuring previously unpublished letters and diary entries, the film creates an intense and intimate atmosphere that takes audiences back to Mucha’s world.
A story about a man who dedicated his life to preserving the Church but instead led it into its greatest crisis: Pope Benedict XVI. After the worldwide sexual abuse scandal became public, Benedict resigned in 2013. An analysis of the failings of an institution that believes in absolute truth as it struggles to come to terms with modern democratic society.
He was an icon, flamboyant pianist, egomaniac, showman par excellence: Liberace – the King of Bling – enjoyed an unparalleled career. The salon pianist turned megastar lived the American dream, but it was a life of unmatched paradox and eccentricity.