Skip to main content

Christian Beetz

Director
Christian Beetz is a German director and producer known for his work in the documentary genre. He has been involved in creating impactful films and series such as "The Cleaners," "How to Sell a War," and "The Valley." Beetz has received various accolades for his projects, including nominations for the German Television Award and the Grimme-Preis. His focus on thought-provoking and socially relevant content has established him as a prominent figure in the world of documentary filmmaking.

Films

Between Insanity and Beauty – The Art Collection of Dr. Prinzhorn

Between Insanity and Beauty – The Art Collection of Dr. Prinzhorn

By Christian Beetz

2007 | 76 min | Documentary

Paul Klee and Max Ernst were fascinated by the visual works of psychiatric patients. The Prinzhorn Collection is the world's largest collection of such paintings. Beetz takes the audience on a journey through the archives of the Prinzhorn Collection, which since its inception in the early 1920s, has had a lasting impact on psychiatric and therapeutic practice. Even artists such as Klee, Ernst and the Surrealist movement were inspired by "the art of the insane." The documentary follows the lives ...

Recommended for you

Vera Lossau - What I See

Vera Lossau - What I See

2012 | 65 min | Documentary

A documentary about the Düsseldorf artist Vera Lossau. How does an artistic idea develop and how is it translated into a work of art? Wolfgang Waldmann accompanies the artist for a year and portrays her creative process in a video diary. The creativity of the artist is under pressure: expectations and the growing dictatorship of art market rules are beginning to threaten her work. Vera Lossau addresses these conflicts and finds ways to integrate them into her artistic process. The Cologne composer ...

Stuttering – My Constant Companion

Stuttering – My Constant Companion

2017 | 89 min | Documentary

Birgit Gohlke, a film and media scholar, has stuttered since early childhood. She deals well with it, but after watching "The King's Speech", Birgit decides to take action. Together with speech therapist Petra Nickel they created STUTTERING – MY CONSTANT COMPANION. Along with Birgit Gohlke herself and David Seidler - author of "The King's Speech" who himself stuttered as a teenager - three other stuttering protagonists talk about their day to day challenges. "An enriching film that breaks down ...

Sandgirl

Sandgirl

2017 | 84 min | Documentary

An award-winning and beautifully animated journey into the creative world of Veronika Raila. As a child her IQ tested as zero due to Asperger syndrome, but today she creates as a poet and cross-platform artist. Veronika Raila has lived with Asperger syndrome and physical disabilities since her childhood, using assisted communication to express her thoughts. In SANDGIRL, the young author invites you on a subtle and poetic journey inside the secret, captivating creative world of her heightened imagination, ...

Bastard in Mind

Bastard in Mind

2022 | 86 min | Documentary

In the summer of 2014, a life-threatening aneurysm (an arterial outpouching) in the brain of the director of this film was discovered during a random examination and had to be treated surgically as soon as possible. Due to the size, shape and location of the aneurysm, it was initially unclear whether and by what method surgery could be performed at all. The frightening diagnosis, this twist of fate and the two long traumatic months until the operation, during which the aneurysm could have burst ...

Ben Berlin

Ben Berlin

2015 | 90 min | Biography

He sat in the cafeteria with Bertolt Brecht, fed elephants with Willy Brandt, argued with Joseph Beuys about oak trees, and phoned Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin. Performance artist, environmental activist, natural philosopher, gallery owner, tree godfather and "anarchist" Ben Wagin, aka BEN BERLIN, has left his mark on the city of Berlin with his controversial style. BEN BERLIN by Sobo Swobodnik and Pantea Lachin steps calmly and observantly into the realm of the 86-year-old artist Ben Wagin. ...

Demmin Cantos - Part 2

Demmin Cantos - Part 2

2023 | 105 min | Documentary

In the second part of this film series, a place in northeastern Germany becomes the stage for a cinematic examination of history, memory, and the present. In Demmin, a town that gained sad notoriety in 1945 due to a mass suicide, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg searches for forms of collective memory. Hans Jürgen Syberberg's latest work, released after a creative hiatus of almost 30 years, is an examination in words and images of the town of Demmin, where he grew up as a child. The film refers to the history ...

Demmin Cantos - Part 1

Demmin Cantos - Part 1

2023 | 105 min | Documentary

In the first part of this film series, a place in northeastern Germany becomes the stage for a cinematic exploration of history, memory, and the present. In Demmin, a town that gained sad notoriety in 1945 due to a mass suicide, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg searches for forms of collective memory. Hans Jürgen Syberberg's latest work, released after a creative hiatus of almost 30 years, is an examination in words and images of the town of Demmin, where he grew up as a child. The film refers to the history ...

Are You Sleeping, Brother Jakob?

Are You Sleeping, Brother Jakob?

2018 | 80 min | Documentary

Stefan Bohun and his three remaining brothers search the past for traces their deceased brother Jakob, who took his own life. This is a very personal film about mourning and saying goodbye, yet also about acceptance and joy, reuniting, and reconnecting with people you love. Jakob had moved to Portugal, but he often suffered from homesickness and despair. The last sign of life that his brother Stefan saw was a changed profile picture in a social network which showed the Larein Valley in the Alps. ...

Tlatelolco

Tlatelolco

2011 | 75 min | Documentary

Lotte Schreiber's documentary illuminates the history of Mexico City by looking at a housing complex in the capital – an epicenter of Mexican cultural history. The Nonoalco Tlatelolco housing complex at the Plaza de las tres Culturas in Mexico City is a vertical city built by modernist architect Mario Pani in the early 1960s as a modern utopia for 72,000 inhabitants. As early as 1521, the Aztecs faced off against the Spanish conquerors at this site. Bloody student protests followed in 1968 and ...

This is what it looks like

This is what it looks like

1984 | 5 min | Shorts

This unique architectural documentary shows both the apartment's interior, with its art posters, dishes strewn across the kitchen table and leafy plants as signifiers of a non-conformist lifestyle, as well as views of the courtyard and street. The studio's inhabitant remains unseen but is present through the point of view cinematography. The International Building Exhibition (IBA) awarded the film its prize for its creative use of cinema in exploring urban space and lifestyle. The short experimental ...