Gunter Hanfgarn

Be Water - Voices from Hong Kong

The fight for democracy in Hong Kong has long been a battle of systems, as well as a brutal game of economic dependencies. With a collage of found footage, interviews with experts and sketches of the thoughts of young activists, the filmmaker paints a picture of a city between wild hope for change and resignation to the Chinese regime.

Rival

Young Roman and his mother Oksana leave Ukraine and go to Germany, where she works illegally while they both live with Gert, an old widower who tries to befriend Roman, who struggles for his mother's attention and sees Gert as a rival.

499

Upon the 500-year anniversary of the Spanish Conquest, a ghostly Conquistador arrives in modern Mexico. As he journeys toward the capital city, he remembers events from his past while encountering the testimonies of real people, the survivors of contemporary violence. History and the present begin to merge, giving nightmarish reflection on the enduring legacy of colonialism in our world today.

Who We Were

A look at the current state of the world, from the hand of six intellectuals and scientists who reflect on the present and postulate about the future.

The Disappearance of Johanna Langefeld

She was a senior supervisor in Nazi concentration camps, but directly after the war she managed to get away from a prison in Krakow. The documentary investigates the most mysterious thread of the escape: how did it happen that a group of Polish female inmates from Ravensbrück helped the former SS woman?

No Land's Song

In Iran, since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women are no longer allowed to sing in public as soloists - at least in front of men. Defying censorship and taboos, the young composer Sara Najafi is determined to organize an official concert for solo female singers. In order to support their fight, Sara and her friends invite three French female singers, Elise Caron, Jeanne Cherhal and Emel Mathlouthi, to join them in Tehran and collaborate on their musical project, re-opening a musical bridge between Europe and Iran. Are they going to succeed and finally be gathered in Tehran, sing together, on stage and without restrictions, and to open a door towards a new freedom of women in Iran ?

Der Jungfrauenwahn

For young Muslims who live in a free society, how is the culture of origin of the parents compatible with their own wishes? What significance does the commandment of virginity have?

Iona

Iona returns to the island where she was born with her teenage son to seek refuge from a violent crime in Glasgow. Iona's return exposes her tormented son, Bull, to a way of life she rejected when she left the island and sends a shockwave through the family she left behind.

Patong Girl

German family Schroeder is spending their Christmas holidays on the Thai island, Phuket. Of all the things, deep within the sleazy tourist bars and alleys of Patong, the youngest son Felix falls in love with a gorgeous Thai girl Fai who in return appears to mutually attracted to him.

Dog Flesh

Alejandro, a solitary, fragile and unpredictable man is crushed by the hostility of his mysterious past.

Gangsterläufer

A knife in the pocket, adrenaline in the blood and only one dream in mind: to be a gangster - and the biggest one at that. Yehya was 15 years old and close to realizing his dream when he met the filmmaker Christian Stahl in the stairwell. Yehya wasn't just the nice boy from next door, he was also "the Boss of Sonnenallee" - one of the gangster runners of the Berlin borough of Neukölln. And gangster runners want to make it in the gangster world. In the eyes of the authorities, he is an "intensive offender"; in his own eyes, Yehya is "one of the top ten of Neukölln. I got my own prosecutor!"

Gangsterläufer

A knife in the pocket, adrenaline in the blood and only one dream in mind: to be a gangster - and the biggest one at that. Yehya was 15 years old and close to realizing his dream when he met the filmmaker Christian Stahl in the stairwell. Yehya wasn't just the nice boy from next door, he was also "the Boss of Sonnenallee" - one of the gangster runners of the Berlin borough of Neukölln. And gangster runners want to make it in the gangster world. In the eyes of the authorities, he is an "intensive offender"; in his own eyes, Yehya is "one of the top ten of Neukölln. I got my own prosecutor!"

Vacuum

The film explores the effects in the society that the last military dictatorship inherited. In Uruguay there are still a lot of desaparecidos - people who vanished during the dictatorship between 1973 and 1985 - and were never found again. María Emilia is one of them and still missing. She disappeared when she was 22-years-old, with her husband and her child of 18 months. María Esther - her mother - spent 16 years searching only to finally find her granddaughter living with a family of an Argentinean military officer in Buenos Aires. After learning the truth about her origin, the granddaughter chose to continue living with the parents who adopted her by force when she was a baby.

Vacuum

The film explores the effects in the society that the last military dictatorship inherited. In Uruguay there are still a lot of desaparecidos - people who vanished during the dictatorship between 1973 and 1985 - and were never found again. María Emilia is one of them and still missing. She disappeared when she was 22-years-old, with her husband and her child of 18 months. María Esther - her mother - spent 16 years searching only to finally find her granddaughter living with a family of an Argentinean military officer in Buenos Aires. After learning the truth about her origin, the granddaughter chose to continue living with the parents who adopted her by force when she was a baby.

Calling Hedy Lamarr

A film about the world's most beautiful woman, a Hollywood goddess and her forgotten breakthrough invention that revolutionized mobile phones. A film about a mother, an emancipated woman and a failed life. The Hedy Lamarr Story tells her tale as a fusion of modern myths, constructed legends and true stories.

Cinemania

This documentary about the culture of intense cinephilia in New York City reveals the impassioned world of five obsessed movie buffs. These human encyclopedias of cinema see two to five films a day, and from 600 to 2,000 films per year. This is the story of their lives, their memories, their unbending habits and the films they love.