Eye For Film >> Festivals >> BIFF >> 2012 >> Panorama Documentary
View other Berlin International Film Festival Films by strand: Berlinale Special, Berlinale Special Tribute, Competition, Culinary Cinema, Forum, Generation, German Cinema - LOLA@Berlinale, Happy Birthday, Studio Babelsberg, Homage, Panorama, Panorama Special, Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Retrospective - The Red Dream Factory, Short Films
No Man's Zone and Call Me Kuchu
Among Men - Gay in East Germany (Unter Männern - Schwul in der DDR)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2011; Director: Markus Stein, Ringo Rösener; Writer: Ringo Rösener)
Gay In East Germany is a documentary which addresses the question of how gay men lived and could live their lives under ‘real socialism’, where GDR ideology considered homosexuality to be a remnant of bourgeois decadent morality and harmful to a socialist society.
Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992
(Country: Germany; Year: 2011; Director: Dagmar Schultz)
Documentary celebrating the life of Afro-American poet and writer Audre Lorde who died 20 years ago this year.
Brötzmann - That's When The World Is Mine (Brötzmann - Da gehört die Welt mal mir)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2012; Director: Uli M Schueppel; Stars: Caspar Brötzmann, Eduardo Delgado Lopez, Danny Lommen)
A look at the band Caspar Brötzmann Massaker who blurred the boundaries between rock music and noise in their '80s and '90s heyday.
Call Me Kuchu
(Country: USA; Year: 2012; Director: Malika Zouhali-Worrall, Katherine Fairfax Wright; Stars: David Kato Kisule, Naome Ruzindana, Stosh Mugisha), Official Site
The story of the Ugandan campaigners who have spoken out against the country's proposed Anti-Gay Bill.
Children of Srikandi (Anak-Anak Srikandi)
(Country: Germany / Indonesia; Year: 2012; Director: Children of Srikandi Collective)
Politics, identity, the search for substitute families, the fear of violence, even among lesbians, the social exclusion of minorities and self-imposed silence are some of the topics addressed in Children of Srikandi.
Nuclear Nation and Marina Abramović The Artist Is Present
Democracy Under Attack - An Intervention (Angriff auf die Demokratie - Eine Intervention)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2012; Director: Romuald Karmakar)
In this documentary, journalists, artists and intellectuals make an appeal for intervention against the lack of progressive politics across Europe and the perceived demise of democracy.
Detlef
(Country: Germany; Year: 2012; Director: Stefan Westerwelle, Jan Rothstein; Stars: Detlef Stoffel, Anneliese Stoffel, Gustav-Peter Wöhler, Lilo Wanders, Corny Littmann)
Detlef takes us back into the turbulent days of the gay rights movement and illuminates an all but forgotten chapter in West-German history, a time of socio-political change during which the battle for fundamental rights for gays and lesbians was fought and won.
Henryk from the Back Row (Herr Wichmann aus der dritten Reihe)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2012; Director: Andreas Dresen; Writer: Andreas Dresen)
Film which explores the workings of grass-roots democracy by following Henryk Wichmann, who is a trained lawyer and the father of three daughters, and also an MP for Germany’s CDU in Potsdam.
In The Shadow Of A Man (Im Schatten des Mannes)
(Country: Egypt; Year: 2011; Director: Hanan Abdalla)
This film interweaves the stories of four women and images from their everyday lives into a powerful, intimate and politically explosive portrait in which the ‘little’ things that inform the lives of these four women – their thoughts, their experience of marriage and their wedding night, divorce, family, violence, abuse, work and migration – come together to form an impressive social portrait.
King of Comics (König des Comics)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2011; Director: Rosa von Praunheim; Writer: Rosa von Praunheim; Stars: Ralf König, Joachim Król, Hella von Sinnen, Ralph Morgenstern)
Humour, irony and razor sharp observation are his liberating weapons against bigoted prejudice in a documentary which pays tribute to Ralf König, Gemany’s best-known comic illustrator and an artist at the height of is creativity.
Vito and The Virgin, The Copts And Me
Look At Me Again (Olhe pra mim de novo)
(Country: Brazil; Year: 2011; Director: Kiko Goifman, Claudia Priscilla)
Look At Me Again is a vibrant road movie that whisks us away to the wild, semi-arid expanse of north-eastern Brazil.
Marina Abramović The Artist Is Present (Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present)
(Country: USA; Year: 2011; Director: Matthew Akers; Stars: Marina Abramovic, Ulay), Official Site, Trailer
Marina Abramović prepares for a major retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York hoping to finally silence four decades of skeptics who proclaim: 'But why is this art?'
No Man's Zone (Mujin Chitai)
(Country: Japan, France; Year: 2011; Director: Toshi Fujiwara)
A journey through the stark post-tsunami landscape around Fukushima.
Nuclear Nation (Futaba kara tooku hanarete)
(Country: Japan; Year: 2012; Director: Atsushi Funahashi)
Survivors of the 2011 Japanese tsunami discuss their experiences and reveal the nature of their lives as refugees.
The Other Chelsea - A Story From Donetsk (The Other Chelsea - Eine Geschichte aus Donezk)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2009; Director: Jakob Preuss)
Winner First Steps Award Documentary
The Other Chelsea – A Story From Donetsk takes a look at issues effecting present day Ukraine.
Our Story - 10-year "guerrilla warfare" of Beijing Queer Film Festival (Wo men de gu shi)
(Country: People's Republic of China; Year: 2011; Director: Yang Yang)
For ten years the Beijing Queer Film Festival has battled official oppression and homophobia to fight for more visibility for gays and lesbian issues in China. This film documents this struggle and the‘guerrilla’ tactics used by the festival’s organisers.
The Reluctant Revolutionary
(Country: UK / Ireland; Year: 2011; Director: Sean McAllister; Stars: Quais Al-Qalisi)
Filmed over a period of one year, this documentary reveals the tension present in Yemen three months prior to the first protests – a result of thirty-three years of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s dictatorship. Director Sean McAllister takes a seemingly unobtrusive protagonist and turns him into a genuine hero who experiences his country’s revolution at first hand and, in doing so, makes events tangible for the viewer.
The Summit
(Country: Italy; Year: 2011; Director: Franco Fracassi, Massimo Lauria)
Those who want to know more about what really happened during the violent G8 anti-globalisation protests in Genoa in July 2001, and who want to find out what led to the brutal deployment of riot police and the effects of this operation will not be disappointed by this film.
Ulrike Ottinger - Nomad from the Lake (Ulrike Ottinger - die Nomadin vom See)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2012; Director: Brigitte Kramer; Writer: Brigitte Kramer; Stars: Ulrike Ottinger, Ingvild Goetz, Irm Hermann, Ulrich Gregor)
Film which provides an exploration of Ulrike Ottinger’s substantial oeuvre, and provides a keen insight into the artist’s life and work. In addition, this year’s Berlinale will honour Ulrike Ottinger with the Special Teddy – Queer Film Award.
The Virgin, The Copts And Me (La Vierge, les Coptes et Moi)
(Country: France, Qatar, Egypt; Year: 2012; Director: Namir Abdel Messeeh)
The Virgin, The Copts And Me is a humorous fictional documentary and family-drama-cum-culture-clash set in Egypt about religion in the diaspora, the art of cinema and the boundless creativity of the filmmakers. Making good use of his mother as the film’s wonderful main protagonist, this directorial debut charmingly and wittily exposes the manipulative aspects of documentary filmmaking.
Vito
(Country: USA; Year: 2011; Director: Jeffrey Schwarz; Stars: Larry Kramer, Rob Epstein, Lily Tomlin, Bruce Vilanch, Armistead Maupin)
A documentary about acclaimed activist and cineaste Vito Russo.
Words Of Witness
(Country: USA; Year: 2012; Director: Mai Iskander)
Words Of Witness follows on from the protests on Tahrir Square and young journalist Heba’s impassioned efforts to reflect the diversity of people’s opinions and their new-found voice.
59th New York Film Festival early bird highlights Futura, Jane By Charlotte, James Baldwin: From Another Place and The Velvet Underground
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