Omnibus film with 13 short films by students of the HfG Ulm
Social & External
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?
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Short film made with the help of the Sundance Film Institute and serving as a proof-of-concept for the subsequent feature film.
When young dad, Joe, discovers he's dying, drifter Charlie is given a unique opportunity to turn his life around. A story of family, identity and starting again.
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.
A woman and her new husband returns to her hometown roots in coastal northern Florida, and must deal with family, business, and encroaching real estate development.
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
When a law student accidentally kills the son of a mob boss in a fight, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by the mob and the police.
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.
The human resistance works to convert a sentinel to their side. Part of the Animatrix collection of animated shorts set in the Matrix universe.
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
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 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.
After a group of young revolutionaries break into a company's corporate headquarters and steal $5,000,000 worth of heroin to keep it off the street, they call on San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs for assistance.
An attention-seeking psychic is kidnapped and tries to use the situation to boost his popularity.
Drama telling the story of Blue, a young man of Jamaican descent living in Brixton in 1980, as he hangs out with his friends, fronts a dub sound system, loses his job, struggles with family problems and has his friendships tested by racism.
In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.