Katja Adomeit

The Last Paradise on Earth

Grounded and romantic Kári loves his simple life in a small village on an isolated island, in one of the smallest countries in the world. But times soon take a turn for the worse; the only source of income for the local community is the fish factory where he works, and when it faces closure, the workers and his best friend look for a way out. But unlike most young people on the island, Kári wants to stay, at peace with things as they are. Even when everyone is chasing a better future somewhere else, Kári decides to stay and face the challenges head-on. Because for him, his home town is The Last Paradise on Earth.

My Eternal Summer

15-year old Fanny has just finished school, but instead of celebrating with her friends, she has to spend the summer trying to say goodbye to her dying mother, whose final wish is to be together in their summer home. Not knowing how much time she has left, they have to find a way to live in the meantime.

Madame Luna

Inspired by real life events, Madame Luna tells the story of an Eritrean refugee who is washed ashore in Libya and survives to become one of the most notorious human smugglers, with deep ties to the Italian Mafia. Now trapped in Italy and forced to experience the brutalising reality endured by the people she has exploited in the past, Madame Luna must try to find a way out before she is recognized and brought to justice. In the process she forms a powerful bond with a younger version of herself.

Crossing

Lia, a retired teacher from Georgia, learns from her young neighbor, Achi, that her long-lost transgender niece, Tekla, has crossed the border into Turkey. In search of Tekla, Lia travels to Istanbul with the unpredictable Achi, where they explore the hidden depths of the city.

The Trouble With Nature

The philosopher Edmund Burke has fled London, debt collectors and a ramping midlife crisis to go on a grand tour of the Alps to rewrite his book on the Sublime in this 18th-century road movie.

Resin

The dangerous paranoia lurking beneath the seemingly idyllic existence of a family of hermits living on a remote island begins to come to the fore when their daughter starts to question her parents' worldview.

The Orphanage

A historic drama with musical Bollywood scenes. Kabul in the early 90s. Soviet values rule the country. Women can wear miniskirts, children can go to school and people can go to the cinema, concerts as well as universities. Life in Afghanistan is similar to life in the Western world. 14 years old Qodrat sells cinema tickets on the black market in the streets of Kabul. After selling a ticket to a secret police officer by mistake, he ends up at the Soviet orphanage, where he fakes his identity at the registration, in hope of getting more power. Everyday life for Qodrat is about friendships, falling in love, doing naughty things and going on adventures – just like it is for children in other parts of the world. However, behind the safe walls of the orphanage the world they once knew is drastically changing as the Mujahideens start the civil war.

Transnistria

An intimate and vital account of love and friendship within a group of youngsters. They live in a complex, contradictory, and isolated world – the self-proclaimed state of Transnistra, where the national flag still holds the hammer and sickle. Tanya plans to move abroad, however future seems to offer frighteningly limited possibilities for her lovestruck friends.

They

J is in their early teens and lives in the countryside. J has been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, goes by the selected pronoun “they”, and takes hormone blockers to suspend puberty. While J’s parents are away, their older sister and her Iranian boyfriend are assigned the duties of house-sitting and looking after J.

The Return

Two Danish-Korean adoptees return for the first time to the country they of their birth. Confronted with the spirit of their Motherland and the personal stories of the fellow adoptees they meet in the city of Seoul, Karoline and Thomas are hurled into an emotionally disorienting journey that forces both of them to question and face their own destiny and identity.

The Square

A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.

Loving Pia

A work of fiction, the film is developed from the life of – and starring – a real woman, Pia, who is intellectually disabled. Pia is 60 years old and she lives in rural Denmark in the care of her mother Guittou, 84. In the story, Guittou is getting old, and Pia worries about what will happen when her mother dies. She is afraid of being left alone. Although Pia has never had a boyfriend, she thinks that she needs to find a man to love in order to survive. Then Pia meets a man called Jens at the harbour. Pia embarks on a quiet and simple relationship with him, not realising that in the meantime it is her mother who is left alone.

Wolf and Sheep

In rural Afghanistan, people are storytellers who make up and tell each other tales of mystery and imagination to explain the world in which they live. The shepherd children own the mountains and, although no adults are around, they know the rules; they know that boys and girls are not allowed to be together. The boys practice with their slings to fight wolves. The girls smoke secretly and play at getting married, dreaming of finding a husband soon. They gossip about Sediqa; she’s eleven years old and an outsider. The girls think she is cursed. Qodrat, also eleven years old, becomes the subject of gossip when his mother remarries an old man with two wives. Qodrat roams alone in the most isolated parts of the mountains, where he meets Sediqa and they become friends.

The Untamed

Desperate to flee but consumed by fear, Alejandra, a young mother and working housewife, is trapped in a violent and unsatisfying relationship with her husband, Angel. She leans on her brother Fabián for support, but he has secrets of his own. All of their lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the mysterious Veronica. She convinces them that in the nearby woods, inside an isolated cabin, dwells something not of this world that could be the answer to all of their problems... something whose force they cannot resist and with whom they must make peace or suffer its wrath.

Baron In The Trees

The Baron in the Trees is a short narrative film about a pair of identical twins: one of them is playing a role in a children’s theater and the other one is a spectator of theshow. The identical appearances and different behaviors create a motif for the film. Along with Anahita’s previous short films When the Kid was a Kid and Needle, The Baron in the Trees will be the last piece to a trilogy of short films with young protagonists. Growth, gender-identity and family dynamics are the main themes of this trio.

Force Majeure

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.

Pine Ridge

19 year old Bert sits in the shade of a tree in Yo Park. Cassandra Warrior feeds her daughter Diamond Rose. Daniel Runs Close sweats under the sun at Wounded Knee Memorial site. Kassel Sky Little puts his boots on at the Waters Rodeo. Vanessa Piper is alone in the middle of Badlands. Lance Red Cloud hangs out behind the gas station at night. It is summer and they all live here, at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, USA.

No Good Men

A young camera operator falls head-over-heels in love with a married TV reporter, who is twice her age. The clash between intense love and the beliefs of Afghan society creates 'unheard' ways of being together and handling romantic life.

The Weight of Elephants

Adrian is a classic outsider. His playful, dreamy imagination distracts him from everyday life, for the reality he lives in could not be more different. Neither his chronically depressed uncle nor his overworked grandmother understand the ten-year-old’s games. His mother abandoned him when he was very young and he is bullied at school. Just as news arrives that three children are missing, a new family moves in next door. Adrian develops a close relationship to their tomboyish, ten-year-old daughter Nicole and believes he is getting close to solving the mys- tery of the missing children. New Zealand forms the backdrop for this universal story for adults and those who have never wanted to grow up. It is a story about friendship and loneliness, emotions which Adrian already feels so poignantly as a child. The Danish first-time director’s expressive visual language dramatically merges water and air, reality and a hint of fantasy.