Our program archive

For more than 50 years, the public Numakage swimming pool in Saitama has been an important meeting place for people of all ages and backgrounds. When the pool is set to make way for an urban redevelopment project, local resistance begins to grow. As the final opening day approaches, the disappearance of the pool becomes unavoidable, and a wave of…

Karla is dreamy, charismatic, and trans. She grows up with her parents in the small Mexican town of Tepoztlán. She loves putting on makeup and dressing up. But sometimes the world feels overwhelming to her. At those moments, she hides in her room for hours. Luckily, Karla has friends and a family who support her, often understand her, and also…

Māori river guardian Ned Tapa takes filmmakers, international water advocates, and activists on a canoe journey along the Whanganui River in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Stretching over 320 kilometers, the river is the first in the world to be recognized as a legal person. For more than 150 years, the Māori people have fought passionately to protect their sacred lifeline. Along…

How an entire nation can fall under the sway of a misanthropic, fascist ideology? It is high time to ask those who experienced it themselves and who, eight decades later, are now ready to answer questions. Eleven contemporary witnesses were interviewed by Patricia Hector and Lothar Herzog for their film. Born between 1920 and 1936, they grew up as children…

The documentary SOLDATEN DES LICHTS explores a growing scene of influencers, life coaches, and self-proclaimed healers who spread conspiracy narratives and maintain close ties to so-called Reichsbürger groups and other anti-democratic movements. These actors rely on apocalyptic scenarios, constant threats, and promises of salvation to encourage their followers to purchase courses and products. Their audience ranges from so-called “sovereignists” and…

Art? Anyone can do that!That’s true—and that’s exactly why the Helen Keller Special Needs School in Rüsselsheim is so deeply committed to nurturing the artistic development of its upper-level students. Art becomes a gateway to the world, and colors, sounds, music, and movement become the ticket to a very special journey. Through the eyes of the children, we discover a…

WO/MEN tells the story of six Albanian burrneshas—women who, for different reasons, have chosen to take on the social role of men. This is a practice deeply rooted in the traditions of their country. They have chosen this path to escape patriarchal structures, to avoid misogynistic violence, to support their families economically, or to evade forced marriages—in other words, to…

Artificial intelligence shapes many areas of our everyday lives: for example in search engines, voice assistants, and social media. Beyond that, it strongly influences developments in business and industry. However, it would be a mistake to believe that this technology operates as a neutral system. In reality, many algorithms are primarily trained on data from white, male users. Coded Bias…

In the name of her village lies a utopian idea that shaped Noam Shuster Eliassi from childhood: Neve Shalom (Hebrew) or Wahat al-Salām (Arabic) roughly means “Oasis of Peace.” The small community of around 300 people from Jewish and Arab families was founded in 1969. It is located in Israel near the border with the West Bank and serves as…

A cinematic journey through war-scarred Odessa. With sensitivity and poetic images, director Eva Neymann captures the dreams of the darkened city and the different lives of its residents: children’s dreams and painful memories, street cats in the twilight, flirtations and military call-ups come together to form stories of loss, hope, and resistance.   Film discussion with Eva Neymann, director Ruth…

Silent film pioneer and “Africa explorer” Hans Schomburgk shot adventure and documentary films in the former German “model colony” of Togo around 1910, shaped by a colonial perspective. More than 100 years later, director Jürgen Ellinghaus travels with a mobile cinema to the original filming locations to explore, together with Togolese audiences, the historical context of the film images and…

The world-famous Black American jazz musician Jon Hendricks decides to face a part of his past. After France awarded him the Legion d’Honneur in 2001, he sets out again in the summer of 2007 to revisit the places of his first encounter with France – after landing in Normandy. During the Second World War, the 22-year-old Jon Hendricks fought on…

Aysun Bademsoy’s long-term observation of Turkish women football players in Berlin-Kreuzberg turns to the next generation 30 years after the first encounter. Born and raised in Germany, they nevertheless ask themselves: Are we really accepted here? It seems as if a cultural divide still shapes their lives. Looking back to the 1990s, their mothers reminisce about a youth in which…

Neither images nor memories refuse to disappear. At this pre-conference event, we’ll be screening two recent documentary films that instantiate the theme driving the conference in the days to follow. Both films are constructed from archival materials, engaging with deeply personal biographies while addressing complex questions of race and queerness, family and home. - Lloyd Wong, Unfinished (Kanada 2025, French…