Projects
UTOPIA IN ETHIOPIA - THE AWRA AMBA EXPERIENCE
"UTOPIA IN ETHIOPIA - THE AWRA AMBA EXPERIENCE" is a project by Pati Keilwerth and Paulina Tervo.
Zumra Nuru had a dream.
"I wanted to live in a place, where men and women are equal and where religion does not dictate the way we live. I wanted to live in a society free of conflict, and full of peace and love."
In 1972 he founded the Awra Amba community. This is the story of utopia in Ethiopia.
Soon,you will be able to visit Awra Amba virtually in an interactive landscape, choosing your own journeys through this fascinating village, while learning about their way of life. By navigating through the principal locations in 360° panoramic view, you will be able to explore interactive tags containing videos, photography, and
facts about this fascinating social experiment.
10 short documentary films provide an insight into the every day life and beliefs of the inhabitants. For 10 weeks, audiences are encouraged to take part in a weaving challenge - by sharing the story, commenting on the topics and contributing their own ideas for a more sustainable world. In the process they weave together an interactive scarf.
View a 360° panorama of one of the huts here: http://panographer.de/download/injera-man/
In order to finish this innovative and ambitious project we are looking for sponsors who would like to help us with the final stages of putting the website together. If you would like to support us and associate your name with this project please contact paulina@awraamba.com
Sarah Ulrike Nörenberg - "They called him Spencer"
Since 2009 Sarah Ulrike Nörenberg is been leading the project www.budspencermovie.com as a producer and screenplay writer side by side with the director Karl-Martin Pold.
"They called him Spencer" is the first documentary movie about the multi-talented Carlo Pedersoli and how he became as Bud Spencer a cult figure for thousands of fans. Via the platform www.budspencermovie.com the fan community is given the chance to participate. The idea is to create a movie not only for fans by fans but also with fans. Last year we’ve launched two very successful crowdfunding campaigns and try to combine this method of financing with traditional film funding.
Jazzanova like a band
DREAMWALKER presents: a film by freier.eckert
For three years the documentary team behind Jazzanova like a band has accompanied the world-renowned musical collective to record the group's moving 15-year musical history. At least that was what the Hamburg-based duo freier.eckert, filmmakers and passionate Jazzanova fans, set out to accomplish.
freier.eckert - aka Alexander Eckert and Matthias Feier - are established creators of music videos and commercials. This time their vision is to make a timeless music documentary that visually captures the internationally-acclaimed collaboration of Berlin DJs and music producers, together with artists like Lenny Krawitz, Roy Ayers, Jamie Cullum and Incognito. They pose the questions: How can a music collective thrive? How do you manifest your dreams? How do you survive?
A movie in Dolby SRD, 90 min., Drehorte: Berlin, London, Rotterdam, Rio de Janeiro, etc.
Felipe Bustos Sierra will present his next crowd-funded film project and elaborate on his previous experience, which has seen three successful campaigns.
Felipe Bustos Sierra will be working next on a mixed media project in association with the Foundation Victor Jara.
"We are looking to crowdfund - as well as crowdsource - an online video and audio archive of personal histories and acts of cultural identity and resistance before and after the military coup of 1973."
Victor Jara was a groundbreaking Chilean theatre performer and director whosefocus shifted to music when he realized its impact and influence within the 60's/ 70's movement for cultural identity and equality. The interviews recorded for the online archive will lay the foundations for a documentary.
Nordstrand
After his awarded cinematic debut Bergfest, Nordstrand is the second part of Florian Eichinger’s trilogy about the mechanisms and aftermath of domestic violence in our time. "Nordstrand" tells the story of two brothers, Marten (30) and Volker (28), who meet after many years in their parents’ now empty house on the coast. Marten would like to pick up together their mother from prison where she has been since the death of their violent father. But Volker can’t forgive neither his mother nor his elder brother for the fact they didn’t protect him from the abuse committed by the head of the family.
Chi l'ha visto - A journey into the unknown, with the goal of revisiting ones own history
In Chi l'ha visto, the feature film debut of the German director Claudia Rorarius, we accompany the protagonist Gianni Meurer on a journey from Berlin to Italy. There, Gianni a man in his early thirties, searches for his father he last saw 25 years ago. Besides pale childhood memories, everything Gianni has from his father, are a couple of letters and a photograph. Gianni shows this photo to everyone he meets on his way to Rome where he suspects his father.
Fiction and reality, role and drama biography interweave in an inseparable way in "Chi l'ha visto": Gianni Meurer is also his name in real life. In Germany a popular musical actor, he is - just like in the film - half German and lost contact to his father as a child. "Chi l'ha visto" makes these concrete biographical aspects the key starting point of a fictional search for traces during which Gianni meets the young German Paul who he spends a couple of days with. Paul is played by Paul Kominek who is internationally famous as a musician under the names "Turner" and "Pawel" published on labels such as Dial, Mute and EMI.
"Chi l'ha visto" is a haunting, calmly photographed road movie with a clear sense of beauty of the landscapes of North Italy circling around questions of personal as well as national identity. It is a refined reflection about how it is possible in the united Europe to completely disappear from the scene despite mobile phones, despite Google and despite family reunion shows. At the same time "Chi l'ha visto" shows how lost family members influence the life of those left behind and even control it. The more improbable the findability of the missing person, the stronger do they determine the >mental maps< of those left behind.
"Chi l'ha visto" is not a documentary but rather a feature film which consciously works with the aesthetic elements of the documentary film. The dialogues are mainly improvised. The film does show great performances by Gianni Meurer and Paul Kominek and an impressive achievement of the director Claudia Rorarius who besides her job as a photographer (Süddeutsche Zeitung, WIRE, Spex) so far attracted attention as an author and director of various international award-winning short-and documentary films, like "Cable Car" and "Twin". For "Chi l'ha visto" she has co-operated with the famous German editor Bettina Böhler as an editor consultant. Böhler most recently edited Christian Petzold's "Jerichow" and Angela Schanelec's "Nachmittag". Lead Gianni Meurer is considered a great German acting-discovery and in the near future will be co-starring with Moritz Bleibtreu for the new film project by Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Jan Kedves
The Genital Warriors by Matthew Way
The 85-minute dark comedy and ensemble film "The Genital Warriors" unites the fragmented perspectives of its protagonists in the past and in the present.
The 70-year-old philanderer, Frank, who’s stuck in a psychiatric ward, writes a screenplay about the loves of his life, Lena (69) and Barbara (68), whom he lost long ago and intends to win back.
The two elderly women meet by chance on a park bench high above the Elbe River. While telling each other their life stories, they find out that they were romantically
involved with the same two men, Frank and Victor, and were betrayed by both. They decide to take revenge on them by traveling to the past with a phallic African magic wand.
On their multi-dimensional travels,Lena and Barbara repeatedly encounter their ex-boyfriends in different bodies and fight for the correct version of their common
history. From an old pink cadillac and in an old Beatles venue, they assasinate Franks, Viktors and other male characters, but are unable to exterminate all of them because Frank is back working on his screenplay and resurrecting their doppelgangers.
But not only are Lena and Barbara part of his life story. To his dismay, Frank discovers that his psychiatrist, Dr. Reimenschneider, has always stood between him and
the two women. Reality and film fantasy become increasingly intertwined.
Written and directed by Matthew O. L. Way. Camera: Dominik Friebel. Production: Way Film Production. Cast: Barbara Nüsse, Ursula Monn, Marlen Diekhoff, Tatja Seibt, Peter
Franke, Lou Castel, Rudolf Waldemar Brem, Yuri Englert, Philipp Hochmair, Theresa Berlage, Eva Lobau, Sarah Masuch, Suzana Rozkosny, Sascha Schäfke, Iris Minich, and many more. Format: Digital Cinema(4K), super 16mm, 16mm (black / white), 8mm, DV
Crew: Assistant Director: Jan Renner. Production Managers: Meike Brockmann, Lisa M. Böttcher, Tjorven Ruhnke. Unit Managers: Robin Tae Soo Ertel, Manuel Freundt. Costume
Designer: Sarah-Christine Reuleke. Makeup Artist: Janine Schoch. Art Directors: Francis Frank, Antonia Puscas, Alexander Hoepfner. Set Decorators: Florian Albertsen, Susanne Bartsch, Andrea Polewka.Production Sound Mixer: Max Kober. Editor: Bastian Jentschke. Script Consultant: Steve Lem. Sound Designers: Tobias Peper, Clemens Endres.
Co-Producer: Tom Lucky. Creative Producer: Ursela Monn. And many more...
Nana Rebhan - WELCOME GOODBYE
We are starting with a collage which compares the basic position of our debate about Berlin tourism: the alternative, hipster community vs. the great numbers of stereo-type tourists with their trolley cases taking over the city. These extreme positions will be illustrated with self-composed music, though reminding the audience
of a “Eisenstein” propaganda campaign. The following movie is divided in different parts addressing the question: WHO IS A TOURIST? The result shows that there is no equal consensus and everyone has different point of view. For instance, a “Neukölln” resident who drives up to “Marzahn” becomes a tourist for the urban planners,
in contrast to the tourism managers who see the real tourists as the ones spending money on hotel stays and museum visits. Another extreme position is observing the French and American as a permanent tourist,
living here for a couple of years to get inspired by the creative vibe and become the next big shot. Therefore the question WHO IS A BERLINER? pops up.
Also, the perspectives are very different. From the “Kennedy position” (everyone who feels like a Berlin is a Berliner) to the opinion that one has to be born in Berlin to belong to the Berliners.
But what makes Berlin so attractive? “Broke but sexy”, the quotation by the mayor Klaus Wowereit became famous, because it is - in the eyes of the residents - so suitable.
But from a touristic point of view, this should be “cheap and sexy”. Why do people love Berlin? Why do people hate Berlin? And WHY BERLIN?
Read more here.
