Sept 26 - Oct 5, 2013
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USA 2009 | 97 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Marc Webb
Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) believes in true love, while Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is a child of divorce and a realist. But when a woman digs the music on your iPod, what to do but fall in love? Everything goes well until Summer breaks up their relatio ...
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Turkey, France, Germany 2009 | 110 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Pelin Esmer
Old Mithat from Istanbul passionately collects and archives newspapers in his flat, which threatens to burst at the seams. The other tenants ridicule him as a freak and he lives a lonely life. Then the other loner in the house, the Anatolian caretake ...
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Denmark 2009 | 125 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Nils Malmros
Set in the early 60s, Nils Malmros’ film centres on the romantic couple Jonas and Agnete, on their friendship, efforts and temptations. Jonas fails to give Agnete the attention she seeks, and when she falls in love with someone else, he experiences ...
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Germany 2008 | 15 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Sonja Marie Krajewski
A woman. A man. A flirt and an invitation. But then something terrible happens. Five minutes which will change the heroine’s life forever. ...
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Egypt 2008 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Ahmed Atef
After shooting a documentary short film on the street children of Cairo, director Ahmed Atef was so taken up by the topic that he decided to make a feature film about it. Glue sniffing runaways and abandoned orphans make easy targets for violent gang ...
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United Kingdom 2009 | 82 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: All Tomorrow's People, Jonathan Caouette
Named after the song by The Velvet Underground, the “All Tomorrow’s Parties” festival has been taking place in England since 1999, as an unsponsored, intimate alternative to huge industrialized festivals. Director Jonathan Caouette ...
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USA, Canada, Kuwait 2008 | 97 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Cherien Dabis
Palestinian single mother Muna Faraha (Nisreen Faour) had completely forgotten about the green card application when it gets accepted. Unwillingly, she makes her way to the land of opportunities, where she must sell burgers in rural Illinois and wher ...
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Belgium, Canada 2009 | 86 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Frédéric Dumont
Louis is a happy 12-year old boy from Sidi Ifni, a minor South Moroccan town. He loves his parents, loves football, loves school and even his brother is OK. Then his father lets him in on a secret: He wants to kill himself. Louis’ entire world ...
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New Zealand 1978 | 79 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: David Blyth
Filmfest Hamburg shows cult gore filmmaker David Blyth’s unforgotten firstling: “Angel Mine”, an independent New Zealand cinema gem. It centres on a young couple pursued by two leather-clad aliens (played by the same actors as the romantic coup ...
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Sweden 2009 | 81 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Jesper Ganslandt
Shooting for “The Ape” was a challenge for main actor Olle Sarri: right up to the end, director Jesper Ganslandt would not permit him to read the script – an unusual method that has contributed to the film’s powerful immediacy ...
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Denmark 2009 | 86 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Martin Pieter Zandvliet
A film like this only comes by once every so many years: where actors reveal their innermost selves, as in Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage” or Mike Nichols’ “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” It is no coincidence that Zandvliet ...
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Portugal 2009 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Ivo M. Ferreira
Pedro (Concalo Waddington) was born in 1970s Portugal, when the Revolution of the Carnations had just ended a 40-year dictatorship. 30 years later he helps his grandmother Ines (Adelaide João) move into an old people’s home and among her posse ...
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Italy 2008 | 103 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Gabriele Salvatores
Anger, fear, desire. Somewhere in Northern Italy. Neo- Nazi Rino is unemployed, but a hero to his teenage son Cristiano (Alvaro Caleca). Their only friend is the slightly disabled Quattro Formaggi. One night Quattro mistakes Cristiano’s girlfri ...
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Denmark 2009 | 95 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Tomas Villum Jensen
Prison psychiatrist Adrian (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is given an unusual job: to travel to Indonesia and examine the mental condition of Severin Gertsen, a Danish man charged with murder. Gertsen claims to have grown 129 years old thanks to a miracle plant, ...
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Poland 1990 | 29 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Malgorzata Bienkowska-Buehlmann
This short Polish documentary shows previously unseen images of East-West German history, shot in Poland October 10 to 20, 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The exodus of GDR citizens had begun that summer. The film shows refugees who re ...
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USA, United Kingdom 2009 | 98 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Sam Mendes
Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) are in their early 30s and await the birth of their first child. Then Burt’s parents announce that they will move to Belgium rather than be there for their grandchild in the US. The couple is shat ...
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Russia 2009 | 84 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Stanislav Mitin
16-year-old Mikhail falls in love with his new teacher Anna Nikolaevna, who returns his love. However, their carefree romance does not go undetected. Soon Anna is obliged to leave the school. But her passionate affair has changed something within her ...
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USA 2009 | 121 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Werner Herzog
Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendez, Val Kilmer– the thriller Werner Herzog boasts a veritable star cast. Detective Terence McDonagh (Cage), of New Orleans Homicide, saves an inmate from drowning in the midst of hurricane “Katrina”, and is promoted to lie ...
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USA 2008 | 84 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
A crossover between“The Blair Witch Project”, “Clerks” and “Fargo”, “Baghead” tells the tale of friends who retreat to the wilderness to write a screenplay. Their plans are foiled by a creepy man with a ...
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Lithuania 2008 | 48 min | OV with English ST and German voice over | FF 2009
Regie: Giedre Beinoriute
11-year old Emiljia lives in the suburbs with her sister and her parents. One day Rolanas and his father move in next door. Timidly, Emiljia and Rolanas begin to communicate, first over the balcony, then through the wall of their adjoining rooms. Soo ...
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Germany, Turkey 2009 | 102 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Miraz Bezar
10-year-old Gülistan and her little brother Firat watched their parents being shot by state security. Forced to live in the street, they are destined to a life of thievery and prostitution. One day Gülistan accompanies the prostitute Dilara and rec ...
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Poland 2009 | 96 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Jacek Blawut
They used to be stars. On stage and on the big screen. Now they bide their time in an old people’s home. Then Jerzy (Jan Nowicki) moves into the home and brings life into the group. What is there to do with so many actors in one place but stage Goe ...
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Lebanon 2008 | 96 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Samir Habchi
Beirut in the 1990s, under Syrian occupation. An Egyptian documentary filmmaker wants to make a film about secret service interrogations of dissidents and gets caught in a net of intrigues and corruption. Meanwhile a young, married Lebanese is shot b ...
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Germany 2009 | 89 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Max Färberböck
Mother and father kneel on the floor, their daughter faces the wall. Shots ring out. Only the girl survives. 17 years ago, inspector Bella Block (Hannelore Hoger) was on that case. Now she is retired. At an art exhibition she recognizes the sculptor ...
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USA 2009 | 81 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Paola Mendoza, Gloria La Morte
Mariana (Paola Mendoza) follows the father of her children from Columbia to New York. But then he leaves them for good and she finds herself alone with her 10-yearold son Gabriel and her six-year-old daughter Andrea, in the middle of a foreign city, ...
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Turkey 2008 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Mehmet Bahadir Er, Maryna Gorbach
They’re young and always on the move. Selim and Çaça, who cruise the streets of Istanbul in their tuned car named “My Orange Angel”, want to open a parking lot near a large shopping mall. But their enemies also want a piece of the action and ...
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Germany 2009 | 12 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Dorit Kiesewetter, Carsten Knoop
Broke and out of work, robbing a post office seems like a good idea to “Fishman” – especially after he kidnaps a blind girl (Laura Tonke). But sometimes even cleverly plotted crimes lead nowhere... ...
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USA 2009 | 105 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Joseph Mathew Varghese
Joseph Mathew Varghese’s melodrama pays homage to the city and the myth of Bombay. Geeta (Tannishtha Chatterjee) is a successful, young businesswoman, seeking to meet the requirements of work and family. It doesn’t help much that she is having an ...
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Armenia 2009 | 82 min | | FF 2009
Regie: Harutyun Khachatryan
An Armenian village on the border to Azerbaijan, shortly after the Azeri-Armenian conflict. The villagers, a cluster of farmers and fugitives, find a dying buffalo, which they bring to a large farm, the centre of their community. The cinema audience ...
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USA 2009 | 77 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Mandy Stein
CBGB (also CBGB’s or CB’s) was a legendary New York punk nightclub on Bowery in Manhattan from 1973 to 2006. The full name, CBGB OMFUG, is an acronym for Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers. The performing ...
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Denmark 2008 | 94 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Kasper Barfoed
The solicitor Jonas Bechmann (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is an achiever. But over night he turns into a murderer. Or so he believes when he discovers his one-night-stand dead beside him and flees the hotel room in desperation. A video depicts him committing t ...
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Canada 2009 | 73 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Denis Côté
Jean-Paul Colmor is a 74 year old collector of scrap metal. He lives and works on a scrap-yard on the outskirts of Montreal, his own personal treasure island, where he sorts, arranges, sells and repairs. His placid life is rudely interrupted when fou ...
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New Zealand 1982 | 84 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: John Reid
After a regional football final, TK Donovan’s sons find him dead in a hotel bed, his last will stuck in his pocket. This letter contains a tricky clause: the football club will be the sole inheritor of his farm should TK not be buried on his belove ...
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Argentina 2009 | 85 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Alejo Moguillansky
“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new”. Thus begins Samuel Beckett’s novel “Murphy”, which serves as a foil for Alejo Moguillansky’s “Castro”. The eponymous protagonist (Edgardo Castro) is neurotic and convinced th ...
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France 2009 | 118 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Jan Kounen
They were engaged in a passionate affair: fashion icon Coco Chanel and the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Based on Chris Greenhalgh’s book “Coco & Igor”, Jan Kounen’s film delves into 1920s Paris. Coco (Anna Mouglalis) ...
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USA 2008 | 101 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Sophie Barthes
A private laboratory that stores souls seems to be the way out of a crisis in the life of actor Paul (Paul Giamatti). After a while of living without the pressure of his own soul, Paul rents a Russian poet’s soul. And he discovers a black marke ...
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USA 2009 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Louie Psihoyos
Every year, great numbers of dolphins are separated from their pods and sold to amusement parks worldwide. Here they grow lonely and?€“ like the eponymous hero from ?€œFlipper?€? ?€“ they sometimes just cease ...
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Japan 2008 | 101 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Takatsugu Naito
Fisherman Manzo (Shinya Kote) is very lonely, failing to hook up even at flirt parties. Then the incredible happens: Kanzo discovers the beautiful Mitsuko (Yuko Miyamoto) and her son Masao hiding in his kitchen cupboard. Where do they come from? Manz ...
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Germany 2009 | 12 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Klaus Frevert
Desperate hacker Eric (Wotan Wilke Möhring) goes to make one last deal before becoming an honest man for the sake of the woman he loves.
But everything goes wrong that night… ...
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Japan 2008 | 130 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Yôjirô Takita
The unfortunate Daigo has lost his position as a cellist and returns to Japan’s north with his wife. Unwittingly, he applies for a job with an undertaker’s, mistaking it for a travel agent’s. But an ample salary and a grotesque self-experiment ...
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Germany 2009 | 12 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Philipp Hartmann
A medley composed of three short films about “der Anner”, which translates to “the other” in a Karlsruhe dialect. Learn more about “gmietlich” (cozy) and “Flübberle” (cigarettes) in this wild, ethnic c ...
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Germany 2009 | 80 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Henrik Peschel, Miles Terheggen
Sleepy is a rapping pizza deliveryman from the quarter of Altona in Hamburg. He starts off with 300 euros and a rusty bicycle and ends up a famous music producer. Shrewd and lippy, the“King of Schnack” takes up the battle with the reigning “Acr ...
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Estland 2009 | 78 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Jaak Kilmi
In 1971 a new television tower in Helsinki enabled the Estonian neighbours to receive Finnish TV. As a result, antennas sprouted from the rooftops in and around Tallinn by the thousands. Estonians were introduced to disco shows, freestyle dancing and ...
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USA 2009 | 90 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Jake Goldberger
25 years after their high school romance, Sonny (Elisabeth Shue) writes Don McKay (Thomas Haden Church) a letter, telling him of her terminal disease and asking him to return to her. Don does so, still loving her, but finds that Sonny has changedR ...
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Germany 2009 | 99 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Anno Saul
David Andernach (Mads Mikkelsen) is a successful artist, when a tragic accident changes his entire life. As he visits his beautiful neighbour, his daughter Leonie drowns in the pool. Plagued by guilt, David loses control of his life; his wife Maja (J ...
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Germany 2008 | 90 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Walter Weber
Back in the day, he used to demonstrate against nuclear power. Now writer Martin Seelig (August Zirner) lives peacefully in a village near Gorleben, fighting only his writer’s block. His lover, pastor Maria (Corinna Harfouch), sometimes finds w ...
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Israel 2009 | 89 min | OV with English ST and German voice over | FF 2009
Regie: Ori Ravid
12-year old Eli’s world is turned upside down when his father, an architect, is charged with corruption and arrested. Eli is convinced of his father’s innocence and tries to find out what really happened. He is faced with injustice and li ...
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Germany 2008 | 92 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Franziska Meyer Price
His heavenly job is beginning to dampen his holy spirit: every Christmas for the past 3000 years, angel Uriel (Max von Thun) has been strengthening frustrated people’s courage to face life. Then he meets the artist Laura (Yvonne Catterfeld) , who w ...
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Canada 2008 | 90 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Astra Taylor
Following her documentary on Slavoj Žižek, the “Elvis of culture theory”, US documentary filmmaker Astra Taylor has filmed nine intellectuals sharing their thoughts in surroundings that mirror their respective philosophies, e.g. ...
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New Zealand 1933 | 80 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie:
As a support programme to the “Neuseeland Deluxe” section, “The Experimental Archive: Adventures in New Zealand Film-making 1933–2007” consists of a collection of experimental films from New Zealand, including
home movie ...
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USA 2008 | 87 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Mark Webber
The four subplots of actor Mark Webber’s directing debut centre on love, drugs and poverty. Seven-year-old Babo has asthma. His neighbour Demetrius dreams of climbing up the social ladder. Art student Michelle has an affair with her dealer. Kal ...
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Brazil, Portugal 2009 | 113 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Eduardo Valente
Rio De Janeiro: a policeman is faced with a difficult decision as he finds himself in the company of a hostage in a house. From this starting point, the film tells three loosely interwoven stories on different time levels. Soon the policeman is suspe ...
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Israel, Germany, France 2009 | 91 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Haim Tabakman
Aaron is a butcher in Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox quarter of Mea Schearim and has four children. He employs the young student Ezri to help out at his shop and finds himself sexually attracted to him. Not only is his marriage put to the test, but ...
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India 2008 | 101 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Nandita Das
The Brecht citation“Will there be singing in the dark times?” serves Nandita Das as motivation in her directorial debut. It is set against the background of the bloody conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat in the year 2002, and shows th ...
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Iran, France, India 2008 | 95 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Chapour Haghighat
A man steps out of the ocean. Thus begins this tale about an unnamed terminal disease (is it Aids?) that befalls an Indian village by the sea. The community asks the government for medical help, but the delegation they send is ignored in the far-off ...
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China 2009 | 78 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Zheng Wei
Somewhere in the middle of Mongolia an old man (Gu Xing-hong) lives off the sparse harvest of a sunflower field. Occasionally his son (Shi Pei-liang) comes by with a motorcycle. One day a mute young woman (Shen Meng-yao) appears. While the old man co ...
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Germany 2009 | 90 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Miguel Alexandre
Once again, Marie Hansen (Silke Bodenbender) has flunked her preliminary medical examination. It means she will no longer be permitted to study medicine – which she dare not tell her ambitious parents. Years later, she is working as an assistan ...
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Israel 2009 | 50 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Yonatan Haimovich
After an absence of several years, Israeli director Yonatan Haimovich returns home to the apartment house of his childhood. Like the other tenants, his family had emigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The Russian enclave in which he grew up, ...
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Sweden, Germany, Denmark 2008 | 152 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Niels Arden Oplev
In 1966, 16 year old Harriet Vanger disappeared without a trace. More than 40 years later, journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist) is commissioned to write the Vanger industrialist family history. In his research he comes across the resourceful ...
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Sweden 2008 | 86 min | OV with English ST and German voice over | FF 2009
Regie: Lisa Siwe
Friendship, parties, boys! Most of Jenna’s wishes are typical for her age. But only most of them. Jenna’s mother has cancer. And in her pocket, Jenna keeps a note that reads: “If you die, mum, I will kill myself.” Otherwise she refuses to tal ...
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Germany 2009 | 89 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Hermine Huntgeburth
When she no longer sees a way out, Olivia (Eva Löbau) hides in the wardrobe. She suffers from a full-blown inferiority complex, which her therapist believes is the reason she goes for such chauvinist men as her husband Klaus (Devid Striesow). Olivia ...
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Sweden 2009 | 83 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Johan Jonason
An urban couple in a crisis: Roy is off work, suffering from depressions and Ylva can‘t take it any longer. She issues an ultimatum: he goes into therapy on a remote farm – or she divorces him. Roy consents, but the socalled therapy consists of h ...
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Israel 2009 | 25 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Benjamin Freidenberg
The young man Eitan (Shir Shenar) lives alone in Jerusalem. He has a night-time job in road construction, painting the median and side strips onto roads. His monotonous life is marked by a longing for friends and human
compassion. The boundaries of h ...
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India 2009 | 122 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Girish Kasaravalli
It is not easy for midwife Gulabi (Umashree): a Muslim among Hindus in a fishing village in South India. After her husband leaves her, she has but few friends left. She keeps her spirits up with the help of the cinema, which she is almost addicted to ...
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Germany 2009 | 75 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Christian Mangels
The growing fan community of the nostalgic little series“Hamburg damals” can look forward to the years 1985 - 1989. A look back onto moving, contradictory times: Chernobyl, Aids and the Reeperbahn, the 800th Harbour Anniversary, squats on Hafenst ...
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Germany 2008 | 88 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Thomas Berger
An unusual friendship between women, set against the baroque background of Dresden. The temperamental Latvian violinist Cora Wahry (Margarita Breitkreiz) is at risk of losing her career on account of a diseased hand. She seeks help with the renowned ...
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Iran 2009 | 88 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Shalizeh Arefpour
During the reign of the Taliban, around three million Afghanis fled to Iran as illegal immigrants. They are still not been integrated there today. When 17-year old Mahi falls in love with the Afghani student Heiran, her family puts up fierce resistan ...
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United Kingdom, Ireland 2008 | 79 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Joe Lawlor, Christine Molloy
18-year old Joy is missing. The young actress Helen slips into her role for a TV film, through which the police hopes to receive tips from the population. While Helen grew up in various children’s homes, Joy had a family, friends and a promisin ...
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Finland 2009 | 133 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Aleksi Mäkelä
In the last century, Rööperi (also the film’s original title) was a social hot spot within Helsinki. Based on the book “Rööperi: The Years of Crime 1955 – 2005” by Harri Nykanen and Tom Sjoberg, the film tells of the rise and fall of thre ...
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Serbia, USA, Germany 2009 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Darko Lungulov
“Here” is New York. “There” is Belgrade. Or vice versa. U.S.-based musician Robert (David Thornton) is in a crisis. In order to escape the permanent fighting with his girlfriend Rose (Thornton’s real-life wife Cyndi Lauper), he takes up Ser ...
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Denmark 2009 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Hella Joof
A road movie about four young girls who cross Denmark in hope of a better future. Originally they only wanted to ‘take’ some cigarettes, but before they know it, they’re on the run in a stolen Volvo. What unites them: their struggle ...
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Canada 2009 | 100 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Xavier Dolan
Canadian Xavier Dolan is 20 years old. Not only does he star in this generation drama, he also wrote, directed and produced it. Authenticity does not pose a challenge as he easily relates to his 16 year old protagonist Hubert. Hubert struggles with h ...
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China 2008 | 92 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Ye Zhao
Jalainur, a major Mongolian coal mine, is one of the last places in the world where steam engines are still put to use. An era comes to an end as the mine is soon to be shut down. The film centres on the conflict between tradition and modernity, capi ...
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Indonesia, Netherlands 2008 | 88 min | OV with English ST and German voice over | FF 2009
Regie: Ravi Bharwani, Rayya Makarim
After the death of his mother, 12-year old Jaya is sent to live with his father, Jokhar. Jokhar works on a Jermal, a fishing platform on stilts. Jokhar, not interested in Jaya as a son, employs him to work under terrible conditions with 8 other boys. ...
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Germany 2009 | 52 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Claudia Willke, Katharina Höcker
Hamburg’s HafenCity (lit: Harbour City) is the largest building site in Europe. It will increase the size of Hamburg’s inner city by 40 percent, and is celebrated as a pinnacle of modern urbanity. No other European city boasts such a large-scale ...
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Belgium 2009 | 120 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Thierry Michel
Thierry Michel portrays the bitter struggle over precious natural resources such as cobalt, ore, wolfram and copper in the Congo. Governor Moïse Katumbi, “a capitalist-populist mixture of Silvio Berlusconi and Hugo Chávez”, is at logger ...
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South Korea, USA, France 2009 | 74 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: N.C. Heikin
The world knows near to nothing of North Korea. Kim Jong’s “democratic” republic is a totalitarian nightmare. When director N.C. Heikin heard refugee Kang Chol-hwan tell the story of his childhood marked by concentration camps, impo ...
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Germany 2009 | 89 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Vanessa Jopp
Because Lore’s (Monica Bleibtreu) husband has eloped with a younger woman, she moves into a flat with her old friend Anneliese (Gisela Schneeberger). Anneliese convinces Lore that one ought to be a little cheekier if one were to enjoy a “ladylike ...
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China 2008 | 74 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Wang Haolin
In a remote Chinese mountain village, the community is presented with a peculiar gift: three years before, a photographer had taken pictures in the village, and now the villagers are confronted with the images. The photographs tear open old wounds, t ...
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France 2009 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Luc Moullet
In his new film, Nouvelle Vague veteran Luc Moullet examines a series of murder cases in his home region of the Southern Alps. A morbidly entertaining documentary of shootings, stabbings, sacrificial death and dismemberment, analyzed by Moullet in a ...
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Belgium, Netherlands 2009 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Alex van Warmerdam
Emma Blank is awaiting her death in her large country home. And so are her servants: Haneveld the butler, Bella the cook, Gonnie the maid and Meier the domestic. And then there’s Theo the dog. Despite her need of care she behaves like a dictato ...
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Germany 2009 | 89 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Matthias Steurer
A treasure of gold? Just the thing Mr. and Mrs. Teuffel (Katja Flint, Axel Milberg) could do with right now– as could the mayor (Thomas Thieme) and the vicar (Andreas Schmidt). The financial crisis has reached the quaint little village of Krummenwa ...
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Germany 2008 | 101 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Lars Büchel
Philipp, called “Lippel”, is 12 years old and dreams of oriental adventures. When his father goes on a business trip, he is left in the care of Frau Jacob, the dreadful new housekeeper. Thankfully he can escape to his fantasy world, where ...
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Germany 2009 | 98 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Benjamin Geissler
“Lost Pictures ∞ Lost Memory?” oscillates between a filmic essay and a chain of interviews, associative cuts and intuitive leaps in time. Geissler explores the world of thoughts of the last 100 years and reflects different perspectives ...
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Germany, Lithuania 2009 | 92 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Ignas Miškinis
Night Driving– aimless cruising through the dark city: when Linas meets his old school buddy Tadas, the latter offers to initiate him in “the rituals of the night”. The nightly pastime takes an unprecedented turn when they are joined by an exci ...
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Hungary 2009 | 109 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Gergely Fonyó
Petticoats! Elvis quiffs! Rock’n’ roll! The 60s provide the backdrop for this musical comedy from Hungary. While the West may have had its problems understanding 60s teenagers, in Hungary they presented a threat to the great cause! This is the cl ...
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Norway, Denmark, Germany 2008 | 118 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg
Max Manus (1914 - 1996) was a famous Norwegian resistance fighter. This epic film follows Manus from the outbreak of WW II to the summer of 1945. When the Nazis occupy Norway, he joins the“Oslo-Gang”, whose primary aim is the destruction ...
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France 2009 | 90 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Lucien Jean-Baptiste
Jean-Gabriel, an amiable Caribbean silly billy, sits in a bar and dreams of fame rather than getting a job. He promises his family their first ever ski holiday despite having gambled away his last money. His wife sets him an ultimatum, and he must ma ...
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France, Italy 2008 | 91 min | OV with English ST and German voice over | FF 2009
Regie: Jacques-Rémy Girerd
Everywhere in the world it has become too hot– with the exception of a mysterious forest, that boasts an agreeable climate. Now a luxury hotel is to be constructed there. Mia’s dad, Pedro, works on the building site. One night Mia has a t ...
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Turkey, Germany, France 2008 | 102 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Semih Kaplanoğlu
A new supermarket in a remote village in Anatolia threatens to destroy Yussuf and his mother Zehra’s means of existence – a milk store. “Countless young Turkish people must currently deal with conflicts of tradition and modernity,” says direc ...
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Germany 2009 | 80 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Sabine Steyer
“Miss Senior Sweetheart” is a beauty contest for women older than 58. It exists since 1978, and takes place in Fall River, a minor town in Massachusetts. Director Sabine Steyer accompanied three participants on their way to the contest, t ...
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Germany 2009 | 90 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Markus Imboden
If Tarantino were Friesian, this is the film he would have made: policeman Helge (Hinnerk Schönemann) lives a quiet life on the North Sea island of Amrum. Until a Federal Crime Police (BKA) officer appears in his police station, covered in blood. Sh ...
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Germany 2009 | 90 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Lars Becker
A wily plan: dress up as a policeman, wave speeding motorists to the curb and cash in. But wearing a police uniform brings obligations with it: a little girl asks for help, seeking protection for her parents. Their well-intentioned help catapults the ...
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New Zealand 1987 | 93 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Barry Barclay
Community, strength and joie de vivre are the central themes of the feature film debut by renowned documentary filmmaker Barry Barclay. When Greg, a young Australian, comes to visit, he is confronted with a multicultural society in mid-upheaval. The ...
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Israel 2008 | 11 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Yael Bartana
Left-wing Polish activist Slawomir Sierakowski delivers a speech on contemporary anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Poland and the desire among
a new generation of Poles to be fully accepted as Europeans. ...
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Finland, Germany, Denmark, Ireland 2008 | 75 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Kari Juusonen, Michael Hegner
The little reindeer Niko believes it can fly. But the other reindeer believe neither this nor his claim that his father was one of the magical reindeer that pulled Santa Clause’s sleigh. Niko and his friend, Julius the flying squirrel, embark o ...
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Iran, Germany 2009 | 106 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Bahman Ghobadi
A familiar story, though highly improbable in Iran: young people get together and form a band. Rock music is illegal in Iran, as is the spirit that comes with it. A complicated censoring system has driven the scene underground. And in“No One Knows ...
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Mexiko 2008 | 92 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Mariana Chenillo
Nora is preparing for death. Her ex-husband is to manage the funeral, the whole family is to gather at the table: her suicide is planned for the Passover feast. But her plan has weak points: the cemetery administration won’t bury suicides and t ...
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New Zealand 1977 | 77 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Michael Firth
Breathtaking mountain panoramas, rapid downhill ski runs, endless skies and the rush of velocity: Nominated for an Oscar in 1977, this film satisfies action sports enthusiasts and nature lovers alike. It centres on two adrenaline junkies who choose t ...
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Turkey 2009 | 81 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Orhan Eskiköy, Özgür Doğan
A young Turkish teacher is sent to the east of the country to teach young Kurdish kids the Turkish language. He himself has little knowledge of the Kurdish language and in the course of the ensuing academic year a number of clashes arise between pupi ...
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China 2009 | 76 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Xiaolu Guo
A subjective anatomy of contemporary, post-Marxist China. Dark, poetic and existentialist images show people from various social classes struggling for survival in modern Chinese society. A farmer loses his land, a weapons-factory labourer wishes Mao ...
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Canada 2008 | 94 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Michael McGowan
When twenty-something Ben (Joshua Jackson) is diagnosed with a terminal illness, instead of seeking immediate treatment, he buys a motorcycle (an old Norton) and a cup of coffee. The coffee cup reads:“Go West!” Which is exactly what Ben does, to ...
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Canada 2008 | 74 min | OV with German voice over | FF 2009
Regie: Simon Reynolds, Ingrid Veninger
12-year old Daniel lives in his parents’ motel. Not much happens here: he helps his parents, plays some basketball on the parking lot by himself, gets in a scrap with some local kids… until 13-year old Vera passes through town with her pa ...
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Turkey, France, Germany, Belgium 2008 | 112 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Yesim Ustaoglu
Nusret suffers from Alzheimer’s, no longer able to care for herself in her village on the Black Sea. Her children deem it best for her to move into a nursing home in Istanbul. When grandchild Murat suggests an outing to her, she asks him to help he ...
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Argentina 2008 | 110 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Gabriel Medina
Luciano (Daniel Hendler) is a neurotic, persistently unsuccessful scriptwriter. He has been working on an unfinished script for years, lives in constant fear of terrible diseases and earns a living as a children’s birthday party entertainer. His fr ...
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Columbia 2009 | 87 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Luis Alberto Restrepo
The well-meaning catholic priest Gabriel (Andrés Parra) makes one mistake after another when he moves to a community in the Colombian backcountry. He insists on having a tumbledown bridge repaired, convinced that it will enable the inhabitants to se ...
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New Zealand 1983 | 113 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Merata Mita
For many people in New Zealand, the year 1981 is synonymous for the“Springbok Tour”, in which the South African national rugby team toured the country. The tour split the nation, one side condemning it as support for the apartheid regime in South ...
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Poland 2008 | 39 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Dagmara Drzazga
This Peking has nothing to do with the capital of China. It refers to a quarter in the Polish industrial town of Katowice in Upper Silesia. Its inhabitants refer to it as“Miracle Quarter”. It consists of derelict apartment blocks, home to ...
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Germany 2009 | 60 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Andrea Katzenberger
On occasion of Filmfest Hamburg, Studio Hamburg Production is screening two brandnew episodes of the ARD tv show THE PEPPERCORNS. In " The Boy Without Name" the "old" Peppercorns will solve their last mysterious case about a boy w ...
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Rumania 2009 | 113 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Corneliu Porumboiu
Policeman Cristi (Dragos Bacur) is ordered to follow a 16-year-old on suspicion of dealing at school. The more he learns about the boy, the more he questions of his mission. If he were to arrest the boy, he would spend years in prison. Ruin a boyR ...
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Senegal 2009 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Léandre-Alain Baker
The beautiful Ramata (the late top model Katoucha Niane) is in her early fi fties, was married to the former minister of justice, living in the elegant quarter of Dakar. The charming petty thief Ngor Ndong is 25. When Ramata gets into the taxi he hap ...
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Germany 2009 | 93 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Jonas Grosch
When Til (Hannes Wegener) is offered yet another prolongation of his internship, he turns the tables and founds a consulting agency for interns. It helps“voluntary” workers to their rights. Then the left-wing activist Sydelia (Katharina Wackernac ...
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Iceland 2008 | 90 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Óskar Jónasson
After Kristófer (Baltasar Kormákur) was caught smuggling alcohol on a freight ship, he spent some time in jail. Upon his release, he works as a security guard. When he is offered to make one last turn with his old freighter, he takes up the offer. ...
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Spain 2009 | 100 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Roberto Santiago
Nacho is a photographer, Pilar is a journalist and they absolutely despise one another. Then they receive the order to make a reportage together on a guru named Olmo, who exclusively treats couples on a six-day hike on the Camino de Santiago. In orde ...
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Russia 2008 | 130 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Andrey Khrzhanovsky
In 1940 Josef Brodsky was born in Leningrad to intellectual Jewish parents. In the 50s he worked as a writer. In 1964 he was condemned to five years of forced labour. In 1972 he was expatriated and moved to USA, where he was awarded the Nobel Prize f ...
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New Zealand 1964 | 102 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: John O'Shea
Nine years after“Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) the figure of the young rebel has reached New Zealand. John O’Shea sends his bored and frustrated protagonist David on a trip from Auckland through Northland and into the mountains of the South. Af ...
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Germany 2008 | 11 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Kathrin Albers, Jim Lacy
Stop-trick puppet animation comedy about three former state railway employees who take revenge for losing their jobs because of privatization. ...
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Israel, France, Hungary 2008 | 94 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Omri Givon
Galia (Reymonde Amsellem) and her friend Oren fall victim to a suicide bombing in a bus in Jerusalem. Oren dies, while Galia survives, severely traumatized. Givon’s film, half love story, half thriller, tells of Galia’s return to life. Af ...
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United Kingdom, China, France, Germany 2009 | 98 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Xiaolu Guo
The young Chinese woman Mei is on a quest: to find herself, to find work, to find love, to find her place in life. First she travels to Chongqing, then to London, into the arms of old Mr Hunt. Ultimately she meets Rachid, a young man from India. But ...
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Turkey 2008 | 86 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Ismail Necmi
At the centre of“Should I Really Do it?” stands Petra, a German woman living in Istanbul. She tells the story of her life to the mysterious, masked Herold: Germany, Turkey, friends, family, drugs and death. In a mixture of docu-fiction and real-l ...
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UK, USA, France 2009 | 109 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Joe Wright
Los Angeles, 2005. Journalist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is in a crisis. He is suffering from writer’s block and his marriage is in ruins. Then he meets the highly talented street musician Nathaniel Ayers. Lopez finds out that the schizophreni ...
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Germany 2009 | 99 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Fatih Akin
Director Fatih Akin loves Hamburg – and Filmfest Hamburg loves Fatih Akin. The best prerequisite for presenting his sixth feature film as the opening film of the 17th Filmfest Hamburg. Akin describes “Soul Kitchen” as his “fir ...
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Poland 2008 | 100 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Maciej Pieprzyca
An unwilling bride, a thief out of desperation, a student about to jump the career ladder. Marta, Bartek and Robert are like splinters: painful and solitary. Yet they are also wishful dreamers, spontaneous and passionate. Marta elopes in her wedding ...
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Germany 2009 | 88 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Patrick Winczewski
The wedding party is celebrating jauntily. As tradition demands, the young men kidnap the bride (Petra Schmidt-Schaller). While the groom (Peter Kremer) still believes he is being put to a ritual, joke test, inspector Klara Blum (Eva Mattes) knows: o ...
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Germany 2009 | 89 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Friedemann Fromm
Lower Saxony stands in fear as a sniper seems to be picking out victims at random. Police nerves lie blank. Chief inspector Charlotte Lindholm (Maria Furtwängler) is certain that the victims are connected, and has discovered greetings of condolence ...
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France, Iran 2009 | 83 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Sepideh Farsi
Director Sepideh Farsi:?€œTehran is full of contradictions. A combination of religion and laicism, tradition and modernity, poverty and prosperity, high tech and retro urbanity?€??€? She shot her film entirely with a mobile pho ...
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Germany 2008 | 8 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Bertolt Hering
The sleeping ‘magician of the times’ wakes up to a change of season only to realize that human existence is endangering the slow rhythm of nature. ...
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Germany 2009 | 11 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Mustafa Dok
Initially, making a census of the village population seems like a joke. But the army soon changes that. Dedicated to all people who lost their homes on account of exploitation and war. ...
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Argentina 2009 | 75 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Juan Sasiaín, Federico Godfrid
La Tigra is a small town– 20 blocks at the most. Estebán returns to his hometown after years of absence, and little has changed. He desperately wants to talk with his father, but his father keeps putting off the meeting. As he waits, he rekind ...
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Chile 2008 | 105 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Alicia Scherson
A broken relationship, a worn-out pop idol, a Scandinavian tourist and a collection of insects are the ingredients of this profound drama. Carla and her husband fight while on holiday and he abandons her by the wayside. Soon she meets Ulrik, a Norweg ...
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Germany 2009 | 79 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Daniel Sponsel, Bernd Glawatty
“We have the capability to overcome many of our mental and physical boundaries but we are not able to walk upon water. Where land and sea merge, man is confronted with the finiteness of human existence. The inhabitants of the North Sea coast are sa ...
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Germany 2009 | 53 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Sophie Haarhaus, Kullar Viimne
Sophie and Simon sit on the floor of an abandoned hut. The young woman holds the 17-year old’s hand, listening to his story. He was kidnapped at the age of ten. Now he has returned. He is one of 30,000 children made to become child soldiers in Nort ...
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Argentina 2008 | 105 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: José Celestino Campusano
The young gay Roberto lives with his mother and sister until he moves in with the older, sexually experienced Raúl. But when the latter stays increasingly away from home, Roberto begins a parallel relationship. Raúl reacts with jealousy and severe ...
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France 2008 | 80 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Cédric Venail
The Israeli artist Absalon passed away in 1993, aged 28. His project “Cellules” (1992) brought him international fame. Prototypes of living units measuring between four and eight square meters. These contained all the basic necessities fo ...
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Germany 2009 | 9 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Gabriele Schwark
This documentary essay is a journey through time and memory, fantasy and reality: a cosmos of remembrance via compositing, back projection, animation, collage and repainting. ...
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Mexiko 2008 | 60 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Matías Meyer
A young man seeks extremes. Alone in the Mexican desert, he takes mescaline which he extracts from Peyote cactuses, following a centuries-old, Indian tradition.“My films always centre on a lack of communication, on death and solitude,” says direc ...
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Russia 2009 | 83 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Karen Shakhnazarov
Karen Shakhnazarov already thought of making a film of Anton Chekhov’s “Ward No. 6” more than 20 years ago. He had even decided on a main actor: Marcello Mastroianni. 20 years later his wish has come true, this time with Vladimir Ilyin in the l ...
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Sweden 2008 | 93 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Simon Staho
Simon Staho describes his film as “a tribute to excessive love. To a love that demands sacrifices, scars and gunshot wounds.” It centres on the young, lesbian couple Ida and Karin. Karin wants to face her past, in which her father used to ...
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USA 2009 | 92 min | OV with German ST | FF 2009
Regie: Woody Allen
After five touristy years, Woody Allen is finally telling another of his typical New York stories. It centres on the eccentric quantum physician Boris Yellnikof (Larry David), who is bemoaning his life. He was almost awarded the Nobel Prize, his wife ...
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Japan 2008 | 104 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Masahiro Kobayashi
Kobyashi’s seventh film at Filmfest Hamburg, “Where Are You?”, tells the story of 16-year old pupil Ryo, who must cover the hospital costs for his mother. When she dies, his financial situation is worsened still, as a worthy funeral proves much ...
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Iran 2009 | 92 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Mohammad Rasoulof
In 2005 Mohammad Rasoulof won the Hamburg Film Critic’s Award for his film “Iron Island”. This time he presents a visually impressive fairy tale: an old tear collector rows across a salt lake, from one village to the next, to collect people’s ...
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France 2009 | 80 min | OV with English ST | FF 2009
Regie: Axelle Ropert
Simon (François Damiens), mayor of a small town in the Basque region of France, wants to keep his family together. He has trouble coping with the fact that his wife Marianne (Valerie Benguigui), his vivacious teenage daughter Delphine and his shy li ...
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USA 2009 | 81 min | OV | FF 2009
Regie: Ry Russo-Young
New York filmmaker Ry Russo-Young and actress Stella Schnabel (daughter of director Julian Schnabel) worked together in developing the character of Shelly Brown, protagonist of?€œYou Won?€˜t Miss Me?€?. Shelly is on a ques ...
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