
Istanbul Echoes
By Giulia Frati
2019 | 98 min | Documentary
Istanbul is being transformed by gentrification. We follow street vendors as they are robbed of more than just their livelihood.


By Giulia Frati
2019 | 98 min | Documentary
Istanbul is being transformed by gentrification. We follow street vendors as they are robbed of more than just their livelihood.

2018 | 87 min | Documentary
The anonymous Berlin concrete building "Excelsior" is only a temporary stop for its residents, yet some have been living there for more than 50 years. Things are expected to improve and everyone helps .With his "invisible make-up", 49-year-old Michael wants to build on earlier successes as an escort boy. Claudia's time as a dancer is over, but new photos are to pave her way back onto the stage. Norman wants to help other people find happiness with his start-up "ChangeU", and himself to a chic ...

2010 | 72 min | Documentary
Although the Hasenheide, a park in Berlin's district Neukölln, has been sensationalized by the German media as a mecca for drug dealers and as a discount drug store, Director Nana Rebhan (WELCOME GOODBYE) shows local people at home in the park's many secret and not-so-secret places. A documentary about BERLIN: HASENHEIDE in all its funky glory. "The film BERLIN: HASENHEIDE, with its atmosphere of pleasant cheerfulness, could have been a little longer - but maybe that shows just how good it the film ...

2014 | 82 min | Documentary
Fear of gentrification, animosity towards tourists, feeling one’s very existence is endangered. The documentary WELCOME GOODBYE captures prevailing attitudes by lending an ear to both the advocates and the adversaries of tourism. Author Harald Martenstein, the philosopher Bazon Barock, the "Tacheles" activist Martin Reiter, "Freies Neukölln"-host Matthias Merkle, residents annoyed by tourists, profiteers, and, of course, the tourists themselves have their say. "WELCOME GOODBYE clarifies the complex ...

2018 | 80 min | Documentary
Filmmaker Douglas Wolfsperger, who grew up in Constance, accompanies the disappearance of one of the last arthouse cinemas on Lake Constance, which had a strong influence on his own career. The "Scala Filmpalast" in Constance was a cinema with an 80-year tradition. In 2017, a branch of the dm drugstore chain moved into the building, although another drug store was already located directly opposite. Eva Mattes, known from Tatort, Woyzeck, Kopfstand, and UNTER SCHNEE, tells Douglas Wolfsperger about ...

2013 | 52 min | Documentary
They try to force her out of her apartment in Berlin's gentrified Mitte district. BETONGOLD is a first-person account of the rampant gentrification that affects many throughout Berlin and in big cities all over the world. Whatever Rothe couldn't capture on film for legal reasons, she depicts in ingenious animated sequences. Katrin Rothe has been living in Berlin-Mitte for years. One day, she and her neighbors are notified that their apartment building has been sold to an investor specialized in ...

2022 | 95 min | Documentary
Nestled in a niche between the city's motorway and industrial sites lies a former meat factory, now home to a vibrant community of entrepreneurs and creatives. From the growl-metal band's rehearsal room to the conceptual artist's studio, the film uncovers a patchwork of interests and perspectives, as diverse as the city itself. Kowalski's documentary offers a refreshing take on urban development, challenging the notion of gentrification by celebrating the beauty of impermanence. With a laid-back ...

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”.

2019 | 76 min | Documentary
What inspires people to take the initiative and organize communal living for themselves? What ideals drive them and how does the financing work? On the basis of six self-managed residential buildings in Austria from 40 years, this documentary sets out to find answers. The pioneers of the cooperative living project in Graz-Raaba talk about their experimental ideals of the 1960s and about growing old in community. The most recent buildings, the housing project Vienna Nordbahnhof and the project willy*fred ...

2018 | 91 min | Documentary
They are everywhere and yet often invisible: homeless people are often ignored. Visibility is also a social indicator. Micha always stands at the same place, at the entrance of a Vienna subway station. There he wishes the passers-by a "successful day", at Christmas also "Merry Christmas". His politeness makes him stand out, he once said. This is why the filmmaker trio Birgit Bergmann, Steffi Franz and Oliver Werani make it their top priority to take a longer look. In her documentary film ZU EBENER ...

2018 | 62 min | Documentary
Although they make their living in the same way, their daily lives are very different. The documentary gives a deep insight into the lives of five tea cooks and at the same time takes a look at the social circumstances, contrasts and traditions of India. For all of them have a story to tell, and as they tell their stories, we learn about India's multifaceted, nuanced and multilayered society. "Hülser is able to not only show these petty self-employed folks in the midst of their poverty and squalor ...