Social & External
Filha
Pai
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.
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
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.
West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
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.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.
In order to take a new job as an employee in the public sanitation department, Juliana moves from the inner city of Itaúna to the metropolitan town of Contagem in Brazil. While waiting for her husband to join her, she adapts to her new life, meeting people and discovering new horizons, trying to overcome her past.
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.
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
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 disillusioned psychologist tries to commit suicide until he strikes up a friendship with an unlikely saviour who teaches him a new way of living.
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.
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.
After five failed attempts to go to the United States, 18-year-old Ramón decides to look for a friend’s aunt in Germany, but never finds her. With no papers or money, and without knowing the language, he barely survives living on the street until he meets Ruth, an old retired nurse who doesn’t speak Spanish. Beyond language barriers and prejudices, they discover that solidarity and humanity make life bearable.
A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.
A man struggles with the tragic memories of his past to make sense of his present, but soon realizes that time isn't the enemy he thinks it is.
