welcome to the 22nd dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg
program
Let’s think about this for a moment or a little longer: What are actually immovable certainties? That history does not repeat itself? That the sun will still rise in 100 years? Parliamentary democracies? What do we take for granted and increasingly realize is more precarious than we could have imagined? And who is this “we” anyway? The only thing that is clear is that the general situation has not exactly become any easier locally or globally since our last festival edition. That sounds serious, and it is meant to be. But there is also something good about it: isn’t a certain confusion, an alarmed state of alert a good prerequisite for reorganizing oneself, taking a critical look at old habits, adopting different perspectives or keeping one’s own values alive through action? We, in this case the team of the documentary film week hamburg, therefore reiterate here once again our conviction that the joint examination of image politics, artistic interventions and political realities, especially with controversial and marginalized topics, is an important contribution to democratic education, social participation and, last but not least, a stable grounding. As always, we advise you to take a seat in one or the other movie theater and talk together about what you’ve seen to counteract any possible feelings of dizziness that might strike us in view of the circumstances mentioned above. We are delighted to welcome you all, our filmmakers and the audience, to the 22nd edition of the festival!
Alerta,
eure dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg
Here you can download the PDF of the catalog and the program schedule of our festival.
Introduction to the Film Program
Our festival has never sought to impose an overarching theme on its film programme. Instead, we aim to offer an experience of the world through the eyes of our invited filmmakers—an experience that both in content and form transcends what is usually seen. A perspective that is layered and at times contradictory, both fierce and tender, bold and searching, poetic and unembellished. A space where diverse artistic approaches and realities converge in a broad spectrum of contemporary and retrospective positions.
This year, we look back at revolutionary upheavals in Latin America in our Kristina Konrad retrospective, continuing our focus on filmmakers—following Tamara Trampe and Karin Berger—who bring a deeply engaged interest to their protagonists. Two Position events are dedicated to the love of sound and music: a short film program in collaboration with the PAPIRIPAR Festival and screenings at the dokfilmclub. Meanwhile, the Film Undone project presents films that were never made, left unfinished, or emerged in different formats at different times.
“Cinema is war,” Stefan Ripplinger once wrote about our festival. Several of this year’s films, though explicitly avoiding images of war, instead reflect on its consequences—whether in the Ukraine, through historical records of Palestine, in the civil war in Mostar, or in the works of Heinz Emigholz. The effects of armed conflicts also become visible through indirect means, as filmmakers explore migrant realities. Political struggles in our program intersect with personal reckonings within families, mirroring broader societal tensions. And despite all the unrest, glimpses of soft utopias appear—where people and plants alike unfold in front of the camera.
In short, six exciting days lie ahead in our trusted festival cinemas B-Movie, Lichtmeß, 3001, and Metropolis, as well as at fux eG, home to our festival center, fux Lichtspiele, and the Clubkino. As in the past two years, we will be traveling from cinema to cinema each day—and we look forward to seeing you there!
Opening film
La Base
Vadim Dumesh, FR 2023, 72 min, French/Arabic/Lao. OmeU
The protagonists in Vadim Dumesh’s film spend much of their time at “La Base,” the central taxi hub of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
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There, they wait for rides—many of them have been doing so for all their working life. Over the years, this concrete expanse in the wasteland next to the airport has become a lived-in space, where mostly migrant communities from the Maghreb, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia come together to share food, music, concerns, experiences, and practical knowledge. But the future—AI-driven mobility—already casts its shadow, not least over their own existence. Filmmaker Vadim Dumesh and the drivers’ phone cameras capture this almost dystopian space. (mg)
Position | Festivalzentrum fux eG
Wed 23.4. | 11 am
Guests:
Philipp Goll,
Olexii Kuchanskyi,
Philip Widmann
Q&A: English
Position: Film Undone
Film Undone
Book Presentation, Film Screenings, and Discussions
Film Undone brings together artists, filmmakers, curators, researchers, and archivists to explore unfinished and unrealized films, film ideas materialized in non-cinematic media, and films that, for various reasons, remained unseen in their intended form and time.
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A 2023 event in Berlin and a subsequent book publication (2024) carefully examined individual projects and reflected on the significance of primary materials both before and after the making of a film. By bringing these elements together under the concept of Elements of a Latent Cinema, the project creates a space to connect cases from different political geographies and historical moments, encouraging a reconsideration of cinema’s invisibilities beyond categories like failure, loss, or incompleteness. Latency signifies an ongoing potential—one that can shift, affect us, and set things in motion. The Film Undone program at dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg focuses on the role of states and their institutions in preventing films from being made. Olexii Kuchanskyi presents his research on the Kyiv School of Popular Science Film, an informal film movement within the state-run studio Kyivnaukfilm, whose experiments in film pedagogy and institutional reorganization were suppressed by Soviet authorities (11:00 AM). Following the screening of Where Russia Ends, a discussion with Philipp Goll will take place, exploring his research for the film. At 1:30 PM, Tara Najd Ahmadi presents The Newborns, a film whose “postponed spectatorship” she discusses in the context of her research on unfinished artistic works in times of revolution. This discussion builds on her presentation at HfbK Hamburg on the previous day (April 22). (Philip Widmann)
How to relate (to) a book – series #2: Film Undone
HFBK Hamburg Tue 22.4. 5 pm
Position | Festivalzentrum fux eG
Wed 23.4. | 11 am
Guests: Philipp Goll, Olexii Kuchanskyi
Position: Film Undone
Where Russia Ends
Oleksiy Radynski, UA 2024, 25 min, Ukrainian with English subtitles
In the 1980s, Ukrainian filmmakers embarked on expeditions to Siberia. Their forgotten film reels were rediscovered in Kyiv during the Russian invasion of the Ukraine in 2022. These materials serve as the foundation for a film essay that interrogates resource exploitation, environmental destruction, and the ongoing suppression and erasure of Indigenous peoples in the colonies of the Russian Empire.
Position | fux Lichtspiele
Wed 23.4. | 1.30 pm
Guest:
Tara Najd Ahmad
The Newborns
Kianoush Ayari, IR 1979, 44 min, Farsi with English subtitles
Immediately after the 1979 revolution, Kianoush Ayari documented the masses of people in the streets of Tehran, capturing a rare glimpse of utopian freedom. When Iranian state television refused to grant approval, the film remained unfinished and locked away. Decades later, a VHS copy surfaced at a flea market and was eventually released online.
Position | B-Movie
Wed 23.4. | 2 pm
Guest: Kristina Konrad
Position: Kristina Konrad
Nuestra América
Kristina Konrad, CH 2005, 84 min, Spanish/German with English subtitles
“Two women in uniform. A revolution. A poem. Memories of a country that no longer exists.”
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Twenty years later, Kristina Konrad returns to Nicaragua in search of two Sandinista resistance fighters whom she interviewed in the 1980s about their role as women in the struggle for freedom, shortly after the fall of the Somoza dictatorship. Back then, they were carried by the euphoria of revolution and the collective dream of a new Nicaragua. But today, the country has become what it never intended to be—just as corrupt, just as neoliberal as any other. With her keen yet poetic and empathetic approach, Konrad retraces the past together with her protagonists—examining the frustration over the failure of the socialist utopia and what remains of the revolutionary ideals. (ek)
> Workshop Discussion with Kristina Konrad
> Cuando éramos felices y no lo sabíamos
> Tempi Passati – Die Zeit, die bleibt
> Kristina Konrad in the B-Movie: Continuation of the position event
A Fidai Film
Kamal Aljafari, PS/DE/QA/BR/FR 2024, 78 min, Arabic/Hebrew/English with English subtitles
In 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Beirut, the Palestinian Research Center was raided, and its archive – historical records of Palestine, fragments of its history, struggles, and aspirations – was looted.
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>A Fidai Film< examines how these confiscated images, hidden away in Israeli archives, have become silent witnesses to a history of dispossession. In a bold act of cinematic resistance, Aljafari reconstructs the visual memory of Palestine, blurring the lines between documentary and experimental film. The power of reclaiming and reinterpreting these stolen images goes beyond merely exploring the past—it becomes an act of creative sabotage against enforced forgetting. (sas)
La hojarasca
Macu Machín, ES 2024, 72 min, Spanish with English subtitles
The earth trembles, and lava slowly carves its path.
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Carmen tends to her family’s land alone. Her sisters, Elsa and Maura, visit her on the Canary Island of La Palma to divide their inherited property. In a carefully balanced interplay between staged sequences and intimate documentary observations, the film allows the bodies of the three women to merge with their surroundings. Their faces reflect memories, unresolved conflicts, affection, and the passage of time. Through the different perspectives and life experiences of the sisters, a mosaic-like narrative unfolds—a poetic and emotional exploration of their lives, bodies, and homeland. (mr)

Fruit Farm
Nana Xu, DE/CN 2025, 30 min, Mandarin with English subtitles
Nana Xu’s Fruit Farm demonstrates, with urgent clarity, the vital role of documentary film in preserving history against all odds.
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Her journey to the remote region of Fruit Farm in southwestern Sichuan Province becomes a search for traces of her hometown’s past. Once a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution, the site has undergone multiple transformations—first into a prison with fruit cultivation, then into a drug rehabilitation center. Some former prisoners, including Xu’s father, still live among the ruins of this system of repression. Xu sensitively unearths the fates embedded in the layers of time, creating a striking work against erasure and forgetting. (mr)
La Duna
Emerson Culurgioni, Stefanie Schroeder, DE 2024, 93 min, Sardinian/Italian/German/English with English subtitles
The director’s grandfather once owned vast parts of the southern coastal region at Cape Teulada in Sardinia.
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For decades, NATO has conducted secret military exercises there, and access to the site remains strictly prohibited. Meanwhile, Sardinians have continuously seen their land and beaches bought up for military use, luxury villas, and holiday homes. The stunning landscape has also become a popular backdrop for high-end fashion campaigns. As independent documentary filmmakers, Emerson Culurgioni and Stefanie Schroeder take a bold and anarchically humorous approach to exploring the island, its people, and their stories. Stolen sand (allegedly linked to Silvio Berlusconi), contested dunes, fictional scenarios, and the resistance of a community—Fuck Temptation Island. (af)
dokfilmclub | fux eG
SLOT
at fux eG
Wed to Sat
April 23–26
dokfilmclub
Cinema at dokfilmclub!
Film Screenings and Music Program
As always, the heart of dokumentarfilmwoche beats in the former Viktoria Barracks in Altona, home to fux eG
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This is where the festival centre is located, with the info counter, morning events, and lunch at cantina fux&ganz. It’s where we visit fux Lichtspiele for screenings and celebrate the nights in our festival club, SLOT. But wait—this year, we’re not just spending the nights there. For the first time, we are transforming SLOT into a cinema as well! From Wednesday to Friday, our new Clubkino will feature music films, a solo concert by Barbara Morgenstern on Wednesday, and DJ sets that connect musically to the film program. On Saturday, SLOT will shift into dance mode, bringing you grooves from hip-hop, R’n’B, and Middle Eastern beats with Sega Lee and Tutku. See you soon—at SLOT Clubkino and at the bar!
clubkino | SLOT in der fux eG
Wed 23.4. | 9 pm
Guests: Sabine Herpich,
Barbara Morgenstern
The film screening will be
accompanied by a short solo concert
by Barbara Morgenstern.
SLOT clubkino
Barbara Morgenstern und die Liebe zur Sache
Sabine Herpich, DE 2024, 108 min, German with English subtitles
From mind to paper, from keys to computer, from rehearsal room to studio. Then to the label, into the public eye, onto the stage before an audience.
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The making of a music album is a meticulous and multi-layered process—a constant act of arranging, negotiating, and mediating. None of it would be possible without a deep passion for the craft, a passion shared by musician Barbara Morgenstern and filmmaker Sabine Herpich, kindred spirits in artistic pursuit. Herpich has long been drawn to artistic working processes as a participatory observer. Films like ›Ein Bild von Aleksander Gudalo‹ or ›Kunst kommt aus dem Schnabel wie er gewachsen ist‹ exemplify her consistent and persistent approach to collaborative documentary filmmaking on equal footing. (bs)
Position | Festivalzentrum fux eG
Thu 24.4. | 11 am
Guest: Heinz Emigholz
Q&A: German
Position: Heinz Emigholz
Framed War
Workshop Discussion with Heinz Emigholz
Over the course of half a century, Heinz Emigholz (*1948 in Achim near Bremen) has created a vast and unmistakable—one might say idiosyncratic—body of work spanning films, drawings, and texts.
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At first glance, his output appears highly disparate: frame-by-frame compositions, fiction films exploring queer and urban themes, rigorously structured portraits of buildings, and intricately drawn cartographies of a nightmarish present. Yet, despite this apparent variety, his artistic and conceptual approach remains remarkably consistent. A direct line can be drawn, for instance, between the phenomenological exploration of gaze, camera, and space in his Schenec-Tady trilogy (1972–1975) and the monologue of the (fictional) cinematographer in The Suit (2024). This discussion will explore key principles of his cinematic and artistic practice, with a particular focus on the relationship between drawing and film—especially in light of the two films premiering in this year’s program. Emigholz’s “diaries” do not document daily experiences but instead collect linguistic and visual remnants of a monstrous world. From these emerges meticulously framed imagery—sometimes silent, sometimes accompanied by sentences as corrosive as vitriol. Of particular interest are the themes of war and violence. These are omnipresent in his drawing series The Basis of Make-Up and weave through his fiction films, coming to the forefront in The Airstrip (2014), The Last City (2020), and Slaughterhouses of Modernity (2022). As poet Lyn Hejinian wrote, “The politics of difficulty can only emerge against the backdrop of cruelty.” (Albano Schoppe)
7 Walks with Mark Brown
Pierre Creton, Vincent Barré, FR 2024, 104 min, French with English subtitles
Filmmaker and farmer Pierre Creton and sculptor and architect Vincent Barré share a long-standing artistic collaboration.
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Their work reflects a deep fascination with nature and those who dedicate their lives to studying it. With a 16mm film crew, they form a small community following paleobotanist Mark Brown along the Normandy coast in search of endemic plants—a journey viewers are invited to join. „Photographing plants is not enough; only when filming them can one capture their soul“, Brown’s gentle voice explains. His life’s work has been dedicated to restoring a primeval forest in his own garden. 7 Walks with Mark Brown shifts between careful nature observation, an unassuming yet charming educational film, a slow-paced road movie, and a quiet utopia. A cinematic herbarium that is, at the same time, its own making-of. (bs)
Position | Lichtmeß
Thu 24.4. | 4.30 pm
Guest: Heinz Emigholz
Double Feature
with NYC, October 10, 2022
Position: Heinz Emigholz
Innsbruck, 6. März 2023
Heinz Emigholz, DE 2023, 9 min, German with English subtitles
A hotel room in Innsbruck. The camera moves searchingly through the room.
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The filmmaker’s passport, his keys and his diary lie on a small table. A laptop on the bed shows a film from 1934: Karl Kraus reads his most famous text, ‘Tourist Trips to Hell’ (1921). It is about a bargain offered by the Basler Nachrichten, the newspaper offering “battlefield tours” in Verdun “at a reduced price”. Emigholz’s camera looks out of the window, a container bears the inscription of the company “Raven”. “Outside they are unburied, / there are Raven Generals!” (Kraus, ‘The Last Days of Mankind’, 1918). A bitter and very personal reflection on war in the midst of war. (asc)
> Workshop Discussion with Heinz Emigholz
Position | Lichtmeß
Thu 24.4. | 4.30 pm
Guest: Heinz Emigholz
Double Feature
with Innsbruck, 6. März 2023
Position: Heinz Emigholz
NYC, October 10, 2022
Heinz Emigholz, DE 2025, 54 min, English with German subtitles
In 2020, several museums, including Tate Modern in London, postponed a retrospective of Philip Guston due to the presence of masked Ku Klux Klan figures in some of his paintings.
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This controversy prompted renowned comic artist Art Spiegelman (Maus) to deliver a fascinating introduction to early newspaper cartoons—an art form that profoundly influenced Guston’s visual language. Spiegelman explores how a simple yet dynamic set of figures and patterns in early comics was capable of subverting racist and sexist stereotypes. This was already the story of Krazy Kat, drawn by George Herriman, a cartoonist whose non-white heritage had to remain hidden in the United States. It is also the story of Philip Guston, a Jewish artist who, particularly in his late work, used a cartoon-like style to address themes such as the Holocaust and the presidency of Richard Nixon. (asc)
Position | Lichtmeß
Thu 24.4. | 6.30 pm
Guest: Kristina Konrad
Position: Kristina Konrad
Cuando éramos felices y no lo sabíamos
Kristina Konrad, DE/CU 2011, 73 min, Spanisch with English subtitles
Everyone in Cuba knows Maité Vera’s telenovelas – she is a legend.
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Why should I spread lies on TV if we accept it in life?” she says and wants people to be able to dream in her love stories and still not gloss over the circumstances of everyday life. She has this in common with Kristina Konrad. In ‘When we were happy and didn’t know it’, the filmmaker creates a monument to this quick-witted, profound and rather charming woman and yet sticks to the essentials: her son in Denmark, writing as a modest everyday activity and heated debates about Cuba and Brecht’s drama theory. One thing becomes increasingly clear as the film progresses: if Brecht were still alive, he would be writing telenovelas like Maité Vera. (ab)
> Workshop Discussion with Kristina Konrad
> Tempi Passati – Die Zeit, die bleibt
> Kristina Konrad in the B-Movie: Continuation of the position event
Lichtmeß
Thu 24.4. | 8.30 pm
Guest: Suse Itzel

Ich hätte lieber einen anderen Film gemacht
Suse Itzel, DE 2024, 23 min, German with English subtitles
An experimental arrangement. Images of rooms are projected onto other spaces.
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Layers of visuals shift and overlap—a green couch transforms into a sculpture, family photographs become silhouettes. An autobiographical voice emerges from off-screen. The space folds in on itself, and cracks begin to appear in the bourgeois backdrop. An abyss opens up: “For a moment, I thought I could take the easy way out. I could simply read aloud from the psychiatric clinic’s report: ‘The patient states that she was sexually abused by her father from the ages of 11 to 15.’ What follows are fragmented glimpses of a life shaped by the consequences of violence and the struggle to process it. A film that is both a necessary provocation and an outstanding artistic reckoning with a biography marked by trauma. (bs)

113 bottles of water in a nightshop
Leo Rottmann, DE/BE/TN 2024, 11 min, English with English subtitles
A dinar slides across the table for an ice cream. It’s hot in a city in Tunisia. The camera follows a woman through the streets
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Off-screen, a female voice reads aloud—letters to Salma Paralluelo, to Jennifer Hermoso. Who? Exactly, the footballers. In these letters, she shares how she discovered watching football and recalls the first game she ever saw. The ticket wasn’t expensive at all. Why? Oh, that’s a long story. The film tells it in just 11 minutes—without leaving anything important out. It’s funny, even though it’s sad, and by the end, viewers will hopefully have felt what football means to so many people: they will have laughed, cried, screamed, stood together in solidarity, and felt anger. And to top it off—let’s stomp on a juice carton in celebration. (as)
Lichtmeß
Thu 24.4. | 9.30 pm
Guest: Philipp Hartmann
Double Feature
with 113 bottles of water in a nightshop

En vez de árboles / Instead of Trees / Anstatt Bäumen
Philipp Hartmann, DE 2024, 79 min, Span./Dt./Engl./Port. OmeU
Two men stroll through the forest, weaving stories as they go, a smartphone in hand to capture an image of nature.
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On their cinematic journey—from Vienna’s Museum of Natural History to a Bolivian salt flat and into the virtual world of Red Dead Redemption—Philipp Hartmann and film critic Roger Koza encounter friends, filmmakers, and experts from different countries. Together, they philosophize about the attempt to represent nature, bound by their shared love of cinema. Hartmann playfully intertwines art history with critiques of colonialism, blending fiction and fact. In its open, collaborative form, the film allows itself to be guided by its protagonists, turning its mosaic-like, idea-rich storytelling into an effortless celebration of friendship and cinephilia. (ek)
clubkino | SLOT in der fux eG
Thu 24.4. | 9.30 pm and 10.30 pm
> TRAILER
The film will be followed by
a Modern Jazz set by DJ Argumentepanzer.
SLOT clubkino
The Cry of Jazz
Edward O. Bland, US 1959, 34 min, English with English subtitles
The Cry of Jazz was created in 1958 as a no-budget project by a small group of young Black intellectuals who were tired of leaving the interpretation of jazz to white “experts.”
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Set up like a Brechtian Lehrstück (learning play) and unusually provocative, the film stages a debate among a multiethnic group, tackling questions of cultural appropriation. The essayistic section of the film narrates the history of jazz and its fundamental, exclusive significance for Black identity in the United States. Documentary footage of Black life in Chicago is set to the early music of Sun Ra. The original 1959 premiere poster boldly proclaimed: “See the most controversial film since Birth of a Nation.” The discourse at the heart of this film remains strikingly relevant today, easily translatable to contemporary pop music genres. (teg)
Position | 3001
Fri 25.4. | 10.30 am
Guest: Kristina Konrad
Position: Kristina Konrad
Tempi Passati – Die Zeit, die bleibt
Kristina Konrad, DE 2025, 82 min, Swiss German with English subtitles
In her latest film, Kristina Konrad accompanies her mother through the process of ageing—both as a filmmaker and as a daughter.
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Initially through words—in conversations about the role of women or in family narratives delivered during a birthday speech—and increasingly through deliberate silence, observing the cleaning of a meat slicer or the ever more laborious movements that become steadying gestures in a slowly fading daily routine. With patient attention and careful listening, an intuitive sense for moments of quiet revelation, and an empathetic, engaged closeness, Konrad’s approach and method as a filmmaker distill into a cinematic concentration that makes the essence of a vanishing existence tangible. A work of remarkable consistency and sensitivity in both theme and form. (ph)
> Workshop Discussion with Kristina Konrad
> Cuando éramos felices y no lo sabíamos
> Kristina Konrad in the B-Movie: Continuation of the position event
Milisuthando
Milisuthando Bongela-Davis, ZA/CO 2023, 128 min, English/Xhosa with English subtitles
Milisuthando is a poetic, essayistic documentary about the Transkei—an “independent state” created by the apartheid government to segregate Black South Africans under the guise of self-determination.
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Born there in 1985, Milisuthando Bongela reflects on her childhood in the Black middle class, a seemingly idyllic existence untouched by white interference—an illusion that ultimately unravels. Through a subversive montage of archival footage, personal conversations, and spiritual elements, she challenges historical narratives and her own memories. In doing so, she examines the lingering poison of apartheid, its impact on three generations of her family, and its influence on her relationships with her white friends. (aa/teg)
Das Deutsche Volk
Marcin Wierzchowski, DE 2025, 132 min, German/Romanian/Turkish/English with English subtitles
As a long-term observation of the aftermath of the far-right terrorist attack in Hanau on February 19, 2020, The German People is a film that remains steadfastly by the side of the bereaved families and survivors.
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Interwoven with encounters with political representatives, it gives space to the pain of those affected and bears witness to their fight for accountability and justice in the wake of the racist murders. That this struggle—five years later, against the backdrop of the ongoing national debates on belonging—remains more necessary than ever is the true scandal in the aftermath of the attack. Through its montage, the film continuously confronts the audience addressed in its title, challenging them to reflect on their own deeply rooted prejudices. (mg)
Stolz & Eigensinn
Gerd Kroske, DE 2025, 113 min, German with English subtitles
In 1994, a pirate radio station from Leipzig portrayed women working in mining and industrial sectors of the former GDR.
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Thirty years later, Gerd Kroske revisits their stories in a simple yet moving split-screen montage, juxtaposing past and present. The women reflect, explain, sharpen their perspectives, and contextualise their experiences. The memories of a miner, a machinist, a chemist, and a train driver, among others, intertwine into a nuanced collective narrative of life in the GDR and the post-reunification era—resisting any form of generalisation. Whether as an elegy to coal mining, a tribute to industrial labor, a sociological observation, a kaleidoscopic portrayal of female biographies, or an alternative and provocative take on history—we should listen to their voices. (ab)
Dear Beautiful Beloved
Juri Rechinsky, AT 2024, 93 min, Ukrainian/English with English subtitles
Dear Beautiful Beloved is a film about the reality of the war against the Ukraine—one that unfolds without images of combat.
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Instead, it confronts us with those who have remained in the war zones, those who do not know where to flee or are unable to escape on their own. And with the dead. While a network of volunteers evacuates the elderly and the sick, forensic teams recover the bodies of the fallen and return them to their families. The camera bears witness to these actions. What we see compels us to reflect on the limits of what can and should be shown. To look or to turn away—what are the options? A discussion about the ethical boundaries of cinematography becomes a way to reconcile our own perspectives with political reality—and the film emerges as a sketch of a profound moral dilemma. (mg)
clubkino | SLOT in der fux eG
Fri 25.4. | 9.30 pm
Afterwards: archive material from the
early years of pop culture in
the FRG
SLOT clubkino
monks – the transatlantic feedback
Dietmar Post, Lucía Palacios, DE/US/ES 2006, 100 min, German Englisch with English subtitles
The story sounds like the stuff of a fake documentary in the rock music milieu:
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as ingenious as it is improbable. Five GI soldiers, who in the mid-1960s were making a solid living with their cover band after serving on an army base in Hesse, meet two graduates of the art academies in Ulm and Essen. The result is a manifesto and an image: instead of long hair, from now on they wear monk’s cowls and tonsures. Always. Under the influence of Fluxus and Minimal Art, the songs became increasingly monotonous and repetitive. Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios’ film uses interviews with the protagonists and extensive documentary material to tell the story of the tragedy of a band that was at least ten years ahead of its time, of the Cold War and the stuffy Ludwig Erhard Germany shortly before the upheavals of 1968. (teg)
Position | Festivalzentrum fux eG
Sat 26.4. | 11 am
Guest: Kristina Konrad
Q&A: German
Position: Kristina Konrad
Attentively Engaged: Encounters with Kristina Konrad
Workshop Discussion
One might assume that a filmmaker’s attentive and sincere interest in their protagonists is a given.
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And yet, when watching Kristina Konrad’s films, this quality stands out as something truly exceptional. There is a distinctive essence to her work—a deeply felt dedication and generosity that is immediately palpable. In the early 1980s, with a loosely defined assignment from Swiss television, Kristina Konrad moved to Latin America, where she became an active chronicler of various freedom struggles and political upheavals. First in 1986, in Nicaragua, documenting female fighters of the Sandinista Revolution, and then again 20 years later, in a country transformed by neoliberalism. Konrad often encounters women—defiant idealists or resistance fighters—at pivotal moments of change, in places where systems are overturned, where the utopia of a socialist society briefly glimmers, or years later, when the revolutionary fervor has long faded. Her films focus on the personal, human stance behind political realities. And so, her attentive gaze extends to everyone she meets: people on the streets of Uruguay, whom she casually draws into discussions about the nature of democracy; a young entrepreneur in Oxford; her own mother, whom she accompanies through ageing. The form of her films is always shaped by her investigative and deeply engaged approach—by her keen sensitivity in communicating with people and their stories. We are honored to present Kristina Konrad’s films and even more excited for the opportunity to meet her in person—to engage in conversations about upheaval and idealism, filmmaking and activism. (ab/ek/ph)
> Cuando éramos felices y no lo sabíamos
> Tempi Passati – Die Zeit, die bleibt
> Kristina Konrad in the B-Movie: Continuation of the position event
Position | fux Lichtspiele
Sat 26.4. | 1.30 pm
Position: Kristina Konrad
Diego
Kristina Konrad, DE 2015, 45 min, Swiss German/English/Italian with English subtitles
University, business, gym, party. Diego is in his early twenties, studying physics in Oxford.
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His daily routine is meticulously planned and performance-driven—success, for the young Swiss entrepreneur, is tied to a photo-sharing app. Even in love and while playing Ave Maria on his electric guitar, he works hard. Yet, despite his ambitious “positive approach” and the rooftop hot tub, he cannot escape the fear of disappointing himself. As Kristina Konrad attentively observes the polished, neoliberal sheen of his life, her engaged presence and characteristically sharp questions make the young man pause. Does something flicker behind the confidently performed version of himself? Or is it merely his effort to maintain control over his own image that becomes perceptible? (ek)
> Workshop Discussion with Kristina Konrad
> Cuando éramos felices y no lo sabíamos
> Tempi Passati – Die Zeit, die bleibt
> Kristina Konrad in the B-Movie: Continuation of the position event
The Palace of Citizens
Rui Pires, PT 2024, 120 min, Portugese with English subtitles
The film begins with a storming of parliament. However, these are not threatening images but rather those of citizens hungry for democracy.
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For a year, Rui Pires observed how, behind the scenes of the Portuguese parliament, representatives and citizens painstakingly worked on drafting laws. Democratic processes and the functioning of representative democracy are laid bare. The portrait of the institution and its actors reveals how the actions of the parliamentarians reflect conflicts between different visions of society and how connections are forged between people inside and outside the palace. If O Palácio de Cidadãos is a film about democracy, it is because it takes the time to explore its essence in detail. (as)
Sat 26.4. | 4.45 pm
Guests: Luke Fowler,
Ute Aurand,
Robert Beavers
In Cooperation with:
PAPIRIPAR Festival
Special: Sound im Film
SOUND, THE WORLD…
Short Film Program in Cooperation with the PAPIRIPAR Festival
This year marks the first collaboration between dokumentarfilmwoche hamburg and PAPIRIPAR, the festival for art, pop, and rotation
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This partnership brings together the experimental filmmaking of dokumentarfilmwoche with PAPIRIPAR’s cross-genre approach, which intertwines art, performance, film, music, and radio play in unconventional ways. The shared interest lies in reflecting on documentary and performative practices while amplifying the sonic experience within the black-box space of the cinema. SOUND, THE WORLD… explores the diverse manifestations of sound from both an acoustic and cinematic perspective. The program presents a carefully curated selection of films (16mm and digital) by filmmakers whose works are distinguished by an extraordinary engagement with image and sound. In films such as Dresden Dynamo and Paul Celan liest, the soundtrack of the 16mm film becomes both a visual and auditory experience, yielding vastly different yet equally fascinating results.
Three of the films—Anne, Richard and Paul, „Der Klang, die Welt…“, and N’importe Quoi (for Brunhild)—portray musicians attempting to translate their lifelong experiences of listening and making music into cinematic reflections. Meanwhile, Hacked Circuit explores the artificiality of film sound, documenting the work of a contemporary American Foley artist who recreates sound effects for Francis Ford Coppola’s thriller The Conversation—one of the few Hollywood films that rigorously explores the narrative potential of sound. Other films in the program forego language entirely, inviting the audience to navigate purely through sound and image, fostering their own associations.
The film program is curated by Luke Fowler, a Glasgow-based filmmaker and artist, whose exhibition—created in collaboration with artist Ryoko Akama—will be on display at Westwerk during PAPIRIPAR (April 24–27). The palindromic festival for pop, art, and all things rotating beyond is curated by Felix Kubin, Nika Son, and Florian Bräunlich. Under the motto “More art in music, more music in art,” traditional disciplines merge into new, experimental forms.
The short film program:
Paul Celan liest
Ute Aurand, DE 1985, 5 min
Hacked Circuit
Deborah Stratman, US 2014, 16 min
Dresden Dynamo
Liz Rhodes, GB 1971, 5 min
QUIPROQUO
Rose Lowder, FR 1992, 13 min
Anne, Richard and Paul
Morgan Quaintance, GB 2018, 16 min
Views From Home
Guy Sherwin, GB 2005, 10 min
„Der Klang, die Welt…“
Robert Beavers, CH 2018, 5 min
N’Importe Quoi
(for Brunhild)
Luke Fowler, GB 2023, 9 min
(Y)our Mother
Samira El Mouzghibati, BE/FR 2024, 96 min, Arabian French Tarifit with English subtitles
Samira El Mouzghibati is the youngest of five sisters and grew up in a family dynamic characterised by unspoken wounds
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In ‘(Y)our Mother’, she embarks on a personal journey to uncover the hidden layers of her family. Using intimate conversations, voice recordings and grainy home videos, she pieces together the complex relationship between mother and daughters. The film alternates between confrontational moments and quiet reflection, capturing intergenerational traumas in a patriarchal society, as well as the fragile yet enduring family bonds. What begins as a search for understanding gradually develops into a long overdue collective dialogue – about marriage, female identity and the meaning of family. (sas)
The Landscape and the Fury
Nicole Vögele, CH 2024, 138 min, Bosnian Dari Kurdish English with English subtitles
Night. Forest. Dogs barking. Low visibility. Nicole Vögele’s film takes us to an EU border.
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In the landscape that separates Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, traumatic memories of the past Bosnian war lie buried like mines, while today people fleeing are forcibly pushed back at the border. They leave new traces in the borderlands and meet local inhabitants. They chop wood, ride quad bikes, shop and at the same time wait, hope and prepare for the next attempted crossing. Time passes, seasons change – old scars become visible and are remembered, new ones emerge. A cinematographic essay that observes and collects and in which past violence and present migration come together in the landscape. (af)
Special | Metropolis
Sun 27.4. | 10.30 am
Guests: Pepe Danquart,
Frank Groth
Special: Klaus Wildenhahn
Reise nach Mostar
Klaus Wildenhahn, DE 1995, 105 min, German OF
In our series of films by Klaus Wildenhahn, we travel back to 1993.
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This observational documentary begins on the road with Klaus Wildenhahn and his cameraman, Frank Groth, as they join the team bus heading to Mostar, Bosnia. The anti-war film follows EU administrator Hans Koschnick—a Social Democrat from Bremen and former mayor—as he navigates the challenges of rebuilding a war-torn city. This cinematic diary offers a close-up view of Koschnick’s working methods, thoughts, and experiences. As the film unfolds, he finds himself under grenade fire, escaping with his life only by chance. A second documentary filmmaker, Pepe Danquart, who was filming Nach Saison at the time, steps in front of the camera to provide further context. Journey to Mostar is both a portrait of an authentic Social Democrat and a snapshot of a high-stakes balancing act in a city caught between opposing fronts. (rg)
Direct Action
Guillaume Cailleau, Ben Russell, DE/FR 2024, 216 min, French/Moroccan/Arabic/English with English subtitles
The self-governing community ZAD (Zone à Défendre) in north-western France emerged from resistance to the construction of an international airport and defied multiple eviction attempts over the years.
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Today, it continues to exist as a social experiment beyond capitalist structures. Filmmakers Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell approach this complex reality by showing various forms of resistance without hierarchy – from bread baking to pogo concerts to press work. In long, static shots on 16mm, an open, multi-layered narrative unfolds that does not provide any answers, but rather encourages the viewer to make their own interpretations. The film is both a document and an artistic act – a reflection on political struggles in cinema, a cinematic gesture of revolt. (fb)
Special | fux Lichtspiele
Sun 27.4. | 3 pm
Guests: Pepe Danquart,
Frank Groth
Special: Klaus Wildenhahn
Nach Saison
Mirjam Quinte, Pepe Danquart, DE 1997, 126 min, Original with German subtitles
The second film in our Sunday matinee with Klaus Wildenhahn is another portrait of the social democrat Hans Koschnik, who was appointed EU administrator in 1993 in Mostar, a city ravaged by civil war.
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While the aid organization “War Child” is on the move in many corners of the city and children become protagonists in ruined landscapes, Brian Eno visits the city and builds on a musical new beginning. The narrative framework of Mirjam Quinte and Pepe Danquart’s film is formed by the reconstruction of the destroyed bridge between the hostile parts of the city, which already became a symbol in ‘Journey to Mostar’. The black-and-white film is a poetic portrait of the city that patiently listens to people’s stories and tells of the attempt to revive a city. (rg)

Die Stimme des Ingenieurs
André Siegers, DE 2024, 21 min, German with English subtitles
Words produced with difficulty, phonetic transcription and finally text and image in time with the language.
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A fragile voice fights against its disappearance. Konrad Siegers, the filmmaker’s father, suffers from the neurodegenerative disease ALS. He speaks a convolute of 3,000 words into a speech computer. “Heaven. Village. Street. Garden. Hedge. Roller shutter. Home.” These terms lead us directly into the setting in which the film is set: a detached house with a garden. An affinity for technical devices. The engineer explains why preserving his own voice is important to him. A sense of familial closeness becomes tangible. His father’s voice, left on the answering machine on the way home, will eventually survive as a digital simulacrum through the voice computer. (jk)
Metropolis
Sun 27.4. | 5 pm
Guest: Mengzhu Xue
> TRAILER
Double Feature
with Die Stimme des Ingenieurs

O Ma
Mengzhu Xue, DE/CN 2023, 30 min, Mandarin English with English subtitles
Mengzhu Xue uses her film to reveal a long-kept secret, having it read aloud by her grandmother in an encrypted syllabic poem.
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In this process, one language (English) is translated into the sign system of another (Mandarin). While the grandmother does not understand the meaning of the words, the audience witnesses Xue’s intimate revelations of her emotional world. In the film, the grandmother becomes a medium, creating space for seemingly insurmountable differences in identity and belonging, as well as Xue’s fears of loss. At the same time, she serves as a conduit for reconciling the voices of the past in the beyond. The coded language becomes both an expression of the unspeakable and a liberating articulation. O Ma is also an expansion of time and a shared experience between grandmother and granddaughter in the face of transience. (jk)
Prisoners of Fate
Mehdi Sahebi, CH 2023, 100 min, Persian Swiss German with English subtitles
Having fled to Switzerland from Iran in 1983 at the age of 20 himself, Mehdi Sahebi accompanied people from Iran and Afghanistan seeking protection in the Alpine republic for over six years from 2016 onwards.
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Mostly filming alone, using the common language as a bridge, the long-term observation provides a deep insight into their difficult everyday lives full of uncertainty. It is an intense and empathetic look that captures the grief and pain of losing one’s homeland and being separated from loved ones, but also gives space to hope and humorous moments. In these times of polemical talk about migration figures, Mehdi Sahebi reminds us with great warm-heartedness that it is about people and their individual fates. (tg)
Closing Film
Brunaupark
Felix Hergert, Dominik Zietlow, CH 2024, 91 min, Swiss German German French Italian English with English subtitles
Orange elevators take the residents of the five building complexes of Brunaupark in Zurich up to their apartments, but also take them out of the building again.
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The latter would be in the interests of the Credit Suisse pension fund, as it has terminated the majority of the existing tenancies. The intact complex is to make way for a more urban new-build concept. The profit-oriented logic behind this is not difficult to understand, but the remaining tenants are unwilling to accept it. The film observes the ongoing transformation processes of their living space and playfully accompanies the residents in their painful memories, their everyday life as neighbors, in the stressful uncertainty and their fighting spirit to stand up together for their collective interests. (mr)
Bullenhuser Damm 92,
S-Bahnhof Rothenburgsort
Thu 24th April – Sun 27th April 2025
Reflecting the Past / Projecting the Future
Salon and Film Space at Bullenhuser Damm for Hamburg-Mitte’s Week of Remembrance
The school at Bullenhuser Damm in Rothenburgsort, which served as a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp in 1944/45, is now partially a memorial site. It primarily commemorates the 20 Jewish children and 28 adults murdered there by the SS shortly before the end of the war. However, apart from a daycare center, much of the building has remained unused for decades.
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In cooperation with dokumentarfilmwoche, this vacant space will be activated for four days during the festival—as a place for conversation, listening, and film screenings. Featuring guest speakers and an exhibition exploring the intersection of memorial sites and urban development, the space invites engagement and reflection.
Open daily from 5:00 PM
Full program available at: www.hallohallohallo.org/salon-filmraum
Program Excerpt:
Do 24.4. | 18.30 Uhr
Das Tribunal – Mord am Bullenhuser Damm
Lea Rosh, BRD 1986, 148 min
Fr 25.4. | 19 Uhr
Wir dürfen es nicht vergessen
Thorsten Wagner, DE 2024, 74 min
Sa 26.4. | 19 Uhr
Pizza in Auschwitz
Moshe Zimmermann, IL 2008, 65 min
So 27.4. | 20 Uhr
Hammerbrook Blues
Louis Fried, DE 2023, 65 min
Metropolis im Planet Harburg,
Herbert-und- Greta-Wehner Platz
Sun 4.5. | 6.30 pm
Guest: Kathrin Seward
dokumentarfilmwoche × Metropolis Kino
An Hour from the Middle of Nowhere
Kathrin Seward, Ole Elfenkaemper, DE/US 2023, 83 min, English Spanish Portuguese with German subtitles
In Stewart County, Georgia, one of the largest deportation prisons in the U.S. holds up to 2,000 people, often without legal representation, as they await trial.
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The only private asylum lawyer in the area, Marty Rosenbluth, and his assistant, Alondra Torres, fight tirelessly for the rights of the detainees. The film follows their battle against a systematically inhumane system.
dokumentarfilmwoche × Metropolis Kino
This April, Metropolis Kino is opening its second screening space with a pop-up cinema at Planet Harburg—the new museum branch of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg and the Harburg City Museum. We are thrilled to return to the cinema after our festival week and to present the Hamburg premiere of An Hour from the Middle of Nowhere by Ole Elfenkaemper and Kathrin Seward, in the presence of the directors and in collaboration with Metropolis Kino.
Sa 10.5. | 19.30 Uhr und 22 Uhr
Zu Gast: Kristina Konrad
B-Movie
So 11.5. | 17 Uhr
Zu Gast: Kristina Konrad, René Frölke
Kristina Konrad at B-Movie
Continuation of the Position Event
Two weeks after dokumentarfilmwoche, we continue our Position event on Kristina Konrad at our festival cinema, B-Movie, with three more screenings in the presence of the filmmaker.
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We begin with Große Freiheit Kleine Freiheit, which follows Inge Viett and Maria Barhoum, who fought for revolutionary change in Germany and Uruguay in the 1960s. Cada Día Historia then provides the prelude to Nuestra América, exploring Nicaragua’s revolution from the perspective of women and mothers. Finally, on Sunday, Unas Preguntas captures the complexities of Uruguay’s restored democracy through street interviews in the 1980s.
More information at: www.b-movie.de
Saturday May 10 at 7.30 pm
Große Freiheit Kleine Freiheit
Kristina Konrad, DE 2000, 83 min, German Spanish with English subtitles
Saturday May 10 at 10 pm
Cada Día Historia
Gabrielle Baur, Kristina Konrad, CH/NI 1986, 78 min, Spanish with English subtitles
Sunday May 11 at 5 pm
Unas preguntas
Kristina Konrad, DE/UY 2018, 237 min, Spanish with English subtitles