Queer Exile Berlin
By Jochen Hick
2023 | 105 min | Documentary
Queer migrants find protection, freedom, and challenges in Berlin. The film shows how they continue to shape the face of the city to this day.
Alyha Love
ActorBerlin-based filmmaker Alyha Love studied directing at the filmArche. Her graduation film, the medium-length feature 'The Worst Evil' (Das schlimmste Übel, 2022), was invited to major festivals. The production received a nomination for the prestigious Max Ophüls Prize in 2023. It was also screened in competition at the achtung berlin festival. Her earlier directorial work includes the short film 'Mutter' (2020).
Films
T-Stories
2019 | 67 min | Drama
Janette and Vanessa experience moments that often push trans women to their limits—unflinching, realistic, and without false drama.
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Hallelujah!
2006 | 5 min | Queer
Award-winning director Jochen Hick humorous doc HALLELUJAH! follows the Pope's visit to Cologne 2005 and juxtaposes two camps of demonstrators. Award-winning director Jochen Hick follows humorous doc HALLELUJAH! follows the Pope's visit to Cologne 2005 and juxtapostions two camps of demonstrators: Christians on the one hand, and gays and lesbians on the other. Direct Cinema in short form.
Mauerpark
2011 | 78 min | Documentary
A tribute to one of Berlin's favorite parks and to Berlin subculture with her eccentric, creative and talented outsiders. MAUERPARK is a unique chronicle of contemporary times that reflects the spirit of an entire generation in the city of Berlin. MAUERPARK is located on former no man's land in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district. Dr. Motte and Wladimir Kaminer, but also Screwdriver Micha, Joe Hatchiban and Ginger Brown all go there. The Wall used to separate people, today the park brings them together ...
Lebe schon lange hier
2019 | 98 min | Documentary
A year in the life of an ordinary street in Berlin. "Summer from of a balcony in Berlin - but also spring, fall and winter: Sobo Swobodnik spent a year observing life in his neighborhood from his apartment and made a unique film about it - with intimate perspectives and vantage points." Filmportal.de The minimalist work of art unfolds a fascinating image-sound-music collage about the “productivity of waiting”.
My Wonderful West Berlin
2017 | 98 min | Documentary
The newest addition to Jochen Hick's Berlin trilogy about gay life in Germany's capital city - with many current political references. The film explores the roots and the fascination of a city that is still a dream destination and refuge for many gay men from all over the world. Jochen Hick interviews local luminaries such as Romy Haag, Rosa von Praunheim, Ades Zabel and Udo Walz. He and they talk their lives and the struggles they've endured. From the Homosexual Action West Berlin (HAW) to the ...
Performance
2014 | 63 min | Love & Sex
Paula and Rodrigo are young, queer artists, like many others in Berlin. Outside of their utopian rehearsal room, they have to fight German red tape. Paula's and Rodrigo's drive to stand out leads them to form a performance collective. The rehearsal room is a space of utopias, but can they make it out the door? PERFORMANCE is a feature film by Hanna Bergfors Kornelia Kugler that plays with the conventions of fiction and documentation, what is on stage and what is at stake. "A life in no budget, ...
The Bitter Apple From the Tree
2015 | 29 min | Documentary
A summer in South Korea: a filmmaker returns to her home country, driven by her complex relationship with her mother. In a small apartment in Incheon, an intimate story unfolds about a woman whose life has been shaped by disappointment and conformity. The youngest of four sisters, born unwanted, she left home at the age of twelve. Since then, she has struggled, marked by the expectations of society and her own family. The daughter's camera captures moments of intimacy and confrontation, an interplay ...
Last Exit Gran Canaria
2025 | 82 min | Queer
In this daring autofictional documentary, filmmaker Tim Lienhard, raised in a Catholic family in southern Germany, traces his late-in-life transformation into a provocatively performative drag persona. Now 64, he reflects on identity, sexuality, aging, and self-esteem with shameless openness and humor. His journey takes him from Berlin to the Torremolinos Porn Festival and Pride Week in Gran Canaria, where he meets OnlyFans creators, partygoers, and peers who share their stories of desire and liberation. What ...
Islands in the City
2021 | 23 min | Comedy
In the calm expanse of the Elbe, where the evening sun bathes the decommissioned cruise ships in a soft light, a story of longing and waiting begins. A young man, played by Marian Freistühler, finds himself on the banks of this mighty river, surrounded by strolling couples gazing into the sunset. His thoughts drift to an uncertain message that could determine his future destiny. The melancholy scenery becomes the setting for an inner drama as he imagines embarking on a journey himself – a journey ...
Not Yet Over
2016 | 63 min | Independent
The film follows various women who strive for medical and social reproductive freedoms and premiered at the International Queer Film Festival Hamburg. While Germany wrestles with abortion laws from the Nazi era, migrant women in this country often struggle with the law and the health care system for their own sexual self-determination. The filmmakers create a condensed setting with four women. One wants a child through artificial insemination, the other wants an abortion, the third wants to become ...
The GDR Complex
2016 | 90 min | Documentary
Young, gay, and conservative, Mario Roellig is a witnesses to the atrocities committed in the GDR. He guides groups through the Stasi prison where he was once incarcerated. A love affair with a politician from West-Berlin made him try to flee to the West, but he got unlucky and was detained at the famous Stasi prison Berlin Hohenschoenhausen. Today Roellig confronts GDR aficionados and is also confronted by people who still believe in social utopias. And he tries to overcome his hurt feelings: ...