DECOLONIZE CHOCOLATE

( 2019| color | 45 min | documentary | English/German with English/German Subtitles | director, editor, d.o.p.)

Chocolate has always been produced in the Global North. Hendrik wants to change that and build a chocolate factory in Ghana: We accompany the fairafric founder on his journey and investigate the question why chocolate is almost never produced in the countries where cocoa originates. We get exclusive insights into the pioneering work of Ghanaian chocolate production, experience what fair value creation means and learn about the challenges the young company fairafric has to face.

Cinema Tour: More than 40 screenings in Germany, Austria, Switzerland in 2020.

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OCCUPATION 1968

( 2018 | color | 130 min | omnibus documentary | German/Polish/Hungarian/Russian/Bulgarian with English Subtitles | co-director)

5 countries of Warsaw Pact occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968. 50 years later 5 directors from these countries are going to shoot a short film about invasion from the point of view of the people who took part in it.

Festivals: Sofia International Film Festival 2018, Titanic International Film Festival 2018,GoEast Festival Of Central And Eastern European Film 2018, LET'S CEE Film Festival 2018, Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival 2018, International Film Festival Innsbruck 2018, KineDok Festival 2018, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2018, Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival 2018, Sarajevo Film Festival 2018, Eastern Neighbours Film Festival The Hauge 2018, Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival 2018, Free Zone Film Festival Belgrade 2018, East By Southeast Film Festival Copenaghen 2018, Bogotà Shorts Film Festival BOGOSHORTS 2018, Trieste Film Festival 2019.

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Our Wildest Dreams

( 2017 | color | 98 min | documentary | English | director )

Our Wildest Dreams tells a story of contemporary nomadic life, of its beauty and its hardships. Foots and Torjus are united by their desire to be outside and always on the move. At once underchallenged by the paucity of authentic experience available to them in society, they long to confront the wildness of the environment, in which they can finally feel themselves and the self-will of nature. We roam through the deep forests of Norway, stroll through the American asphalt jungle and fathom the feral edges of the human mind.

Awards: Best Cinematography, Rhode Island International Film Festival 2017, Best Score, New York City Independent Film Festival 2018, Best Documentary Feature, Impact Doc Awards San Diego 2018, Second Prize, Best Documentary, Desert Rocks Film and Music Festival Hesperia 2019.

Festivals: Rhode Island International Film Festival 2017, New York City Independent Film Festival 2018, , Impact Doc Awards San Diego 2018, Desert Rocks Film and Music Festival Hesperia 2019, On the Road Festival Roma 2019.

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Mit Leichtem Gepäck

( 2014-2015 | color | transmedia | German with English Subtitles | co-director, d.o.p., editor)

A travel series that took us around the world in 8 months: www.mitleichtemgepaeck.de

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LOLY H.

( 2013 | color | 18 min | documentary | French with English Subtitles | director )

"I am Loly, Loly Houssière. I'm 11 years old. The other kids at school call me Poussière (Dust). I'm funny. I'm a chatterbox. I'm weird. I'm not like the other children. I live with my daddy at the Ancrage. It's a residential care-facility that helps people who are in difficulty."

Awards: Best Documentary, Intervideo Awards Mainz 2014.

Festivals: 5 sur 5 Documentary Festival La Louvière 2013, Entre-Vues Exhibition de l'Ancrage La Louvière 2013, Giffoni International Children's Film Festival 2014, Intervideo Awards Mainz 2014, Shortcutz Berlin 2016, Bamberger Kurzfilmtage 2016.

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HOLY F#&%

( 2013 | color + b/w | 7 min | documentary | English | director, d.o.p., editor, producer )

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein maintained that the limits of one's language are the limits of one's world. But is it possible that by expanding and broadening the definition of language, the world itself can become, wider, deeper, bigger? In HOLY F#&% we see people who liberate themselves when they bend and break the rules of language, foregrounding its materiality and unconscious dimension, producing sounds which give access to realms of the mind that words cannot reveal and express. With this uninhibited flouting of conventions and the hegemony of the functional, they challenge us to expand our definitions of language and speech in different directions.

Awards: Best Experimental Short at Columbus International Film + Video Festival 2013

Festivals: Seoul International Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival 2013, Cincinnati Film Festival 2013, Columbus International Film + Video Festival 2013, Kurzfilmnächte kurzundschön (WDR, Einsfestival) 2013, MEDIA 10-10 Film Festival Namur 2013, Lone Star Film Festival Fort Worth/Texas 2013, Regensburg Short Film Festival 2014, European Independent Film Festival Paris 2014, CineKink Film Festival New York City 2014, Fort Myers Film Festival 2014, VIS Vienna Independent Shorts 2014.

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SOBOTA

( 2013 | color + b/w | 30 min | semi-fictional documentary | German with English/French subtitles | director, producer, editor )

Sobota is a man without morals, without remorse. In the 1960's, he was known as the most notorious pimp and merciless thug in Vienna’s red-light-district. Later he became the author of one of the most demonized and top-selling Austrian autobiographies. His provocative reports have been a golden opportunity for the media, who mystified him and created an image of the ultimate "bad boy". But where does the fascination for the dark side of life come from? What is left of him today, over thirty years after the publishing of his memoirs? The film does not search for Sobota's supposed motives, but for the abysmal human character in each of us.

Awards: Best Documentary, Landshut Short Film Festival 2014, FFF Award for best film by an emerging director, Regensburg Short Film Festival 2014.

Festivals: Visions Du Réel International Film Festival 2013, International Documentary Film Festival Munich 2013, Cannes International Film Festival / Germany Shorts 2013, Münster Film Festival 2013, Dublin International Short Film and Music Festival 2013, Signes de Nuit Film Festival Paris 2013, Flensburg Short Film Festival 2013, exground Film Festival 2013, Munich International Festival of Filmschools 2013, Bogotà Short Film Festival 2013, Glockenbachwerkstatt Munich 2014, Landshut Short Film Festival 2014, Ca'Foscari Short Film Festival 2014, Regensburg Short Film Festival 2014, Regard sur le court métrage Chicoutimi 2014, Belgrade Short Film Festival 2014, VIS Vienna Independent Shorts 2014.

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THROUGH THE LENS OF INKEDKENNY

( 2012 | color | 18 min | documentary | English with French/German/Portuguese subtitles | director, production manager )

inkedKenny is a photographer who has a special relationship to his models, who dares to look behind the facades, who produces and opposes them. He shapes the universe of the homosexual Bear Community of Montreal by taking pictures of muscular men who embody a certain ideal of beauty. What appears at first glance to be a pure body cult is a source of strength in an extraordinary fate.

Awards: Grand Prix at Lugano Film Festival 2013, Award for Best Documentary at Bamberg Short Film Festival 2013, 1st Prize at Queer-Streifen Gay/Lesbian Short Film Festival Regensburg 2013, 2nd Prize at Konstanz Short Film Festival 2013, Honorable Mention at Regensburger Kurzfilmwoche 2013.

Festivals: DOK.Forum / International Documentary Film Festival Munich 2012, Film Leben Festival Ilmenau 2012, Munich Art Film Weeks 2012, German-Russian-Student Film Festival Moscow 2012, Long Nights of the Museums Munich 2012, Festival Nacional 5 Minutos Bahia 2012, Wildbear Weekend Art Show Vancouver 2012, Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival 2012, International Queer Film Festival Merlinka Belgrade 2012, Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Ljubljana 2012, Munich International Festival of Film Schools 2012, Romanian Gay Film Nights International Film Festival Cluj-Napoca 2012, Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois Montréal 2013, Regensburger Kurzfilmwoche 2013, Festival du Court-Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand 2013, Berlinale International Film Festival 2013, Sehsüchte International Student Film Festival 2013, International Short Film Festival Winterthur 2013, Media festival plattform#11 Tuebingen 2013, Wendland Short Film Festival 2013, Peace & Love Film Festival Borlänge (Sweden) 2013, International Short Film Festival Cyprus 2013, Tattoo Art Exhibiton Gewerbemuseum Winterthur 2013, Hamburg International Queer Film Festival 2013, Montréal Ciné Tapis Rouge Film Festival 2013, 28th Independent Film Festival Osnabrück 2013, Othermovie Lugano Film Festival 2013, exground filmfest Wiesbaden 2013, Konstanzer Kurzfilmspiele 2013, VGIK International Festival Moscow 2013, Bamberger Kurzfilmtage 2013, Queer-Streifen Gay/Lesbian Short Film Festival Regensburg 2013, Glockenbachwerkstatt Munich 2014, Sehsüchte Film Festival Tour 2014, Kontakt Kulturfestival Bamberg 2014, Grassi Museum of Ethnography Leipzig 2017

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FLIEHKRAFT

( 2011 | color | 17 min | documentary | German with English subtitles | director, production manager )

Matthias has spent five months in solitary confinement, sentenced by the GDR authorities for illegal border crossing. Deprived of sleep and social contact, cut off from the outside world, he lived on his mere daydreams, yearning to catch a glimpse of the sky or to smell the scent of the ocean... Even after 23 years, Matthias can`t escape from his former cell.

Festivals: "Coup de coeur - Le court metrage allemand" at the International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand 2012 / Audi Festival of German Films Sydney 2012 / Brussels Short Film Festival 2012 / Outbox International Film Festival Beirut 2012/ In the Palace International Short Film Festival Bulgaria 2012 / La Maison de l'Image Strasbourg 2012 / Quantum Café German Film Festival Makati (Philippines) 2012 / 21st European Film Festival for Documentaries dokumentART Szczecin 2012, One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Prague 2012, Kurzfilmnacht Memmingen 2012, International Film Festival "Colors of the World" Moscow 2012, Alcine Festival Internacional de Cine 2012, Goethe Institute Hyderabad (India) 2012, Univerciné - Cinéma Allemand Film Festival Nantes 2012, the RIFIC Film Festival Yaounde (Cameroun) 2012, International Short Film Festival Istanbul 2012, Kyoto Media Art Week (Japan) 2012, PankulturA Film Festival Lille 2013, goEAST Film Festival Wiesbaden 2013, Brussels International Film Festival 2013.

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I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU NOT
ICH LIEBE DICH, ICH LIEBE DICH NICHT

( 2011 | color | 29 min | docufiction | German with English subtitles | director, d.o.p., editor, producer )

It happens 795.000 times each year: Countless dreams of countless people are ripped apart. Being struck down by a stroke signifies a major burden for a human being, but also shakes the life of his or her loved ones to the core. In times of jet lag and burn out syndrome, the risk increases with every blink of an eye. About 6,500,000 stroke survivors are alive today. I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU NOT fuses documentary and fiction into a kaleidoscope of memory and status quo. It sheds a light on this crucial stroke of fate for a love relationship. How can you lead an active life when your significant other is trapped in his or her body? What if recovery stagnates? Will anything ever be the same again? A documentation of a state of mind, a tale of a goodbye in stages, a farewell to yesterday.

Awards: 1st Prize at Ca'Foscari Short Film Festival Venice 2011.

Festivals: Ca'Foscari Short Film Festival Venice 2011, Un Mare Di Cinema Film Festival Lipari 2011, Festival International du Court Metrage Lille 2011, International Documentary Film Festival Munich 2012.

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ON A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE
ICH PACKE MEINEN KOFFER

( 2009 | b/w | 17 min | documentary | German with English/French subtitles | director, editor )

I'm going on a trip. By means of an old children's game the film is searching for the value of memories: Five completely different personalities disclose splinters of thought, report on crucial moments of their lives. But where is their connection? The own memory is replaced by evidence of previous generations, whereas the life behind the pictures remains concealed. We all carry our lives in a widely travelled suitcase: a suitcase full of memories, which are passed on to us but are never really our own.

Awards: Honorable Mention at Konstanz Short Film Festival 2009, 1st Prize "Important Cinematic Work" at Alternative Film/Video Festival Belgrade 2010.


Festivals: DOK Leipzig 2009, kurz.film.spiele Konstanz 2009, Bunter Hund Munich 2009, Filmgipfel Oberstdorf 2009, Kurzfilmnacht Memmingen 2010, Festival de Curtmetratges de Manlleu 2010, OpenEyes Filmfest Marburg 2010, Le Master International du Film Documentaire / Docencourts Lyon 2010, Alternative Film/Video Festival Belgrade 2010, Independent Days Karlsruhe 2011, KratkofilPlus International Film Festival Banja Luka / Bosnia Herzegovina 2011, Open Cinema Art Festival St. Petersburg 2011, Ars Dilettanti Augsburg 2014.

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