Social & External
Narradora
Omnibus film with 13 short films by students of the HfG Ulm
A tiny bug crawls across an unknown landscape as it continually metamorphoses around the creature. Suddenly, there is a twist.
The end of the world isn’t a global catastrophe, but an inner sense of total collapse, like for a man who’s lost his job and doubts his wife’s loyalty. In despair, he goes fishing and finds a wounded angel. He takes the angel home on his bicycle and introduces him to his family. But soon after, during a party at a local bar, the angel is accidentally shot by a neighborhood policeman. Based on Gabriel García Márquez’s short story 'A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings'.
Two strangers, Edith and Richard, are brought into the home of a strange couple, Aloysius and Sebastian. They are faced with bizarre and strenuous scenarios challenging their very being. They must adapt in order to survive.
Flashing lights explode across an apartment as images of a woman in bed flicker in and out.
In this non-dialogue tale, taking place along the coast of Vietnam, a mermaid is rescued from the fish market by a fisherman. As the hero carries her back to the ocean, they are joined by two jolly seahorses. Upon her wake at the beach, the mermaid performs a sensual dance. But her joy is cut short: the waves have other plans.
A father travels through five stages of grief after discovering that his wife is having an affair. The father is portrayed by five different actors and actresses.
In an open letter to the most influential modern Indian political leader, the Late Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the filmmaker sequentially narrates the stories of three distinct individuals - that of a confused filmmaker who flows with time, a dedicated social reformer who guides the stratified masses into social upliftment and a divisive and regressive politician. The juxtaposition of their disfigured trajectories provokes a pertinent question: Did Gandhi ever foresee the dehumanized shape that his legacy has now dangerously morphed into?
A chronicle of the lives of a couple and the gradual dissolution of their relationship.
A tormented man struggling with his inner demons, seeks desperately a way to be at peace with himself.
Kaito lost his sister who was his lover in his childhood. He severed all contact with the outer world for twenty years and devoted his time to writing down memories of his sister. One day, a week before the manuscript is to be completed, a woman visits his room. She burns all his papers and takes him to the city to cut him off from his memories. Nevertheless, Kaito cannot stop writing about his sister. The woman decides to lead him on a journey to ultimate hell.
In the aftermath of an emotional shock, a ruthless high-class manager faces her own abyss, becomes pervaded by a sensory spirit and undertakes a purifying voyage.
A woman uses an AI chatbot to try to find closure with someone she lost.
Reenacting the suicide episode of the last Ming emperor, Chong-zhen from the classic Cantonese Opera Floral Princess, this experimental short film blending Cantonese Opera and modern dance elements reveals the journey of the defeated emperor accompanied by his faithful eunuch, Wang Sing-yan, on their way to the summit of Coal Hill to end their lives. Apart from inviting new perspectives towards their ambiguous queer overtones, it also explores the crossroads of life and death, authority and obedience, love and sacrifice, power and duty, that befall under the traditional patriarchy.
A young scientist studies the mechanics of time travel by having a conversation with a group of her future selves.
What remains for me is to promote my own ruin. Aware of inevitable loneliness, the incarnation of cruelty.
The Road is a deeply personal experimental film by Jana Hammoudeh, chronicling her journey as a nomadic soul, always on the move yet never truly belonging. Shot across three separate road trips, the film blends visual poetry with intimate monologues in multiple languages, reflecting the fragmented nature of the protagonist’s life. The film’s segments—Leaving Amman, Scrambled Eggs, and Postcards to a Friend—explore themes of love, loss, and freedom. The first segment, set in Amman, presents a conflicted relationship with home, inspired by Charles Bukowski’s Let It Enfold You. The second, in French, revisits past romances, while the third, narrated in Kazakh and Urdu, contemplates departure and longing. Through dreamlike cinematography and raw reflections, The Road captures the bittersweet beauty of transient nature of life and self-discovery.
A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?
20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
Dr. Alan Stone breaks new ground for treatment of the mentally ill through an experiment on three paranoid schizophrenic patients who believe they are Jesus Christ.
A boozy lowlife tries to bury the truth about his crazy stepson's suspicious death, but a nosy newspaper columnist and the young man's mother complicate matters.
A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Based on the Vanity Fair article of the same title, a story about a young boy drawn into a web of lies through an online chatroom.
When a reclusive survivalist and his daughter rescue a mysterious, wounded woman from a river, they become entangled in a deadly web of violence and revenge, forcing them to confront a brutal criminal to survive.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
When motocross and heavy metal obsessed, 13-year-old Jacob's delinquent behavior forces CPS to place his little brother Wes with his aunt, Jacob and his emotionally absent father must finally take responsibility for their actions and each other in order to bring Wes home.
When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.
Two high school filmmakers decide to create the illusion of a haunting on an unsuspecting neighbor.
When strangers Jim, Eva, Emily and Mo meet William online in his new 'Chelsea Teens!' chatroom, they're completely seduced by his fast-talking, charismatic character. But beneath the surface lies a much darker truth. William is a dangerous loner, channeling all his energies into cyberspace. He's become an analyser, a calculating manipulator who finds it almost impossible to interact normally with others in the real world, instead turning his hand to manipulating people online.
A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.
