My Film with Andrei, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Document a Sex Party. (2021)

The Unpredictable Factor

In today's climate debate, there is only one factor that cannot be calculated in climate models - humans. How can we nevertheless understand our role in the climate system and manage the crisis? Climate change is a complex global problem. Increasingly extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and more difficult living conditions - including for us humans - are already the order of the day. Global society has never faced such a complex challenge. For young people in particular, the frightening climate scenarios will be a reality in the future. For the global south, it is already today. To overcome this crisis, different perspectives are needed. "THE UNPREDICTABLE FACTOR" goes back to the origins of the German environmental movement, accompanies today's activists in the Rhineland in their fight against the coal industry and gives a voice to scientists from climate research, ethnology and psychology.

Storm in a Teacup

Australian artist Leon Pericles faces his greatest challenge: holding an exhibition of his life's works while facing the mental decline of his wife and collaborator Moira, as Alzheimer's disease turns their world upside down.

Tangerine Dream - Signals from the Schwäbischen Strasse

German TV film, also shown on Spanish TV in 1976, this is a film all about TD which includes informal interviews and concert/studio footage, most of which seems to have been done exclusively for the film. The interviews are in the German language. The street name in the title refers to where Edgar Froese used to live in Berlin (apparently Klaus Schulze lived on the same street at the time) and is now the site of the TDI offices.

The Highest of Stakes

Richard Heart embarks on a groundbreaking mission to revolutionize the world of finance. Fueled by his unwavering belief in the potential of blockchain technology. Heart sets out to create a game-changing network called PulseChain…, only to be indicted by the SEC!

Prinzessinnenbad

A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.

Blessed Blessed Oblivion

BLESSED BLESSED OBLIVION weaves together a portrait of masculine performativity in East Jerusalem, as manifested in gyms, body shops and hair dressing parlors.

Pick up the Wind

A short film following Anthony, a young child from the small, rural town of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. We see him in different moments of his daily life as he interacts with different forms of environmental, familial, and social influences. While Anthony displays contradictory traits of creativity, destruction, rigidity, and tenderness as he interacts with his external and internal worlds, we see a story built from the the multidimensionality of Anthony's layered personality as a young man.

The Butch Factor

What does mean to be gay and be a man? There's no straight answer for sure. From the Castro culture of the 1970s to today’s Bears and gym rats, this fascinating investigation of gay men and sexuality blows the lid off old stereotypes and showcases a battalion of interviewees including muscle men, rodeo riders, rugby players and cops. The men speak candidly on topics from homophobia to metrosexuality to embracing effeminacy as they reveal what it means to be a gay man in America today.

Becoming Black

In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews with Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the astonishing strategies of denial her parents, striving for normality, developed following her birth. What sounds like fieldwork about social dislocation becomes an autobiographical essay film and a reflection on themes such as identity, social norms and family ties, viewed from a very personal perspective.

Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery

A deep dive into one of the most enduring and high-stakes mysteries in technology and finance: the origins of Bitcoin and the identity of its anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

A Modern Man

You could be forgiven for mistaking Charlie Siem for James Bond. Whether he's driving an orange Porsche to his cliff-top Monaco mansion, ordering martinis or looking suave in a designer suit, he is a man on a mission. It isn't to hunt down SPECTRE, but to find perfection in everything he does. Whether it's performing on stage, recording albums, or selecting a suit, Charlie demands the best, of himself and others. Despite an entourage dubbed ‘Charlie's Angels', he's lonesome, and complains that people can't relate to him. Danish filmmaker Eva Mulvad, with patience and panache, delves into this life of privilege to find commonalities of ambition and desire.

Party auf dem Todesstreifen - Soundtrack der Wende

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Do I Sound Gay?

What makes a voice “gay”? A breakup with his boyfriend sets journalist David Thorpe on a quest to unravel a linguistic mystery.

The Bitcoin Phenomenon

In 2008, an anonymous idealist published a paper under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto which described a digital currency or online payment system; the system was introduced as open-source software in 2009. Four years later, the value of all bitcoins was in the billions of dollars. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; the management of transactions and the issuance of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Because bitcoin is public by design, it is not owned or controlled by any government or bank.

100 Years of the UFA

The intricate history of UFA, a film production company founded in 1917 that has survived the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, the Adenauer era and the many and tumultuous events of contemporary Germany, and has always been the epicenter of the German film industry.

Dead Man's Switch: A Crypto Mystery

A riveting cryptocurrency thriller unravels the story of a Canadian blockchain wizard who mysteriously died on his honeymoon in India and the fate of his investors' $200 million. Did it vanish into the digital void or does it remain locked away in password-protected accounts?

Nick Cave: Stranger in a Strange Land

Documentary made for Dutch television about Nick Cave in Berlin in 1987.

Tunnel to Freedom

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

Bitconned

In this true-crime documentary, three guys exploit the freewheeling cryptocurrency market to scam millions from investors and bankroll lavish lifestyles.

RUIN: Money, Ego and Deception at FTX

RUIN is a feature documentary about Sam Bankman-Fried and the stunning collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, as narrated by Bloomberg journalists and some of the central players in the rise of digital assets.

The Connection

The Connection is a film about how frontier research is proving that there is a direct connection between your mind and your health.

Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains & the Future of the Internet

Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet takes a deep dive into the crypto ecosystem and blockchain technology to discover the good, the bad and the ugly of this controversial industry, its major narratives, conflicts and the major players behind it. Can blockchain technology be used to create a new, fairer, decentralised and uncensored web3.0 where we can control our data and protect our online identities? Or will the potential be squandered as mega corporations once again compete for dominance in this new field. With his unrivalled and exclusive access, award-winning filmmaker Torsten Hoffman (Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It) takes us on a journey into the heart of this brave new world.

Schade, daß Beton nicht brennt

A documentary about the clashes between squatters and the police in Berlin in early 1981. Despite the absence of commentary, this is an openly partisan film that aims less for political analysis than for an up-close description of the situation and mood.

Köy

KÖY (Turkish for village) is about the longing for home, for belonging and the freedom of the self. Three women from three generations are united by their Kurdish roots.

Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984-1992

Audre Lorde, the highly influential, award-winning African-American lesbian poet came to live in West-Berlin in the 80s and early '90s. She was the mentor and catalyst who helped ignite the Afro-German movement while she challenged white women to acknowledge and constructively use their privileges. With her active support a whole generation of writers and poets for the first time gave voice to their unique experience as people of color in Germany. This documentary contains previously unreleased audiovisual material from director Dagmar Schultz's archives including stunning images of Audre Lorde off stage. With testimony from Lorde's colleagues and friends the film documents Lorde's lasting legacy in Germany and the impact of her work and personality.

La fuga

The internal journey of eight men, who, through a theater workshop, go through the different prisons they inhabit. Practicing the art of seeing themselves, in Boal's words, this group of men reflects on their masculinity as a representation to hide their true strength: their vulnerability.

Der Reichstag

Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.

WORLD WAR CYBER

In 2022 Ukraine has become the proving ground for an arsenal of contemporary cyber warfare techniques from mobile applications, drones and satellites to bringing forth a shift in the economy of war through cryptocurrency. With civilians playing an active role in this war and enlisting in the so-called digital army, we have entered a gray zone of what constitutes a civilian and an active combatant. The “cyberwar” in Ukraine hasn‘t always been front and center in the news, but it‘s one of the things that might directly impact the West and the nature of future conflicts.