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Irina Heckmann

Director
Irina Heckmann is an independent filmmaker and art teacher whose works critically and reflectively address contemporary social issues. Her most recent documentary is *Between the Frontlines* (2023, 145 min.). Her earlier films include the widely acclaimed *Family Life* (2017, 82 min.), *The Most Brilliant System Ever* (2014, 43 min.), and *At the End of All Days* (2012, 32 min.). She is a member of Filmbüro NW, AG DOK, and Dokomotive. Born in 1980 in the Omsk region of Russia, Heckmann trained as a painter at the Art Lyceum in Omsk in 1999. In 2001, she emigrated to Germany, where she first studied painting and printmaking in Münster, followed by film studies in Dortmund.

Films

Family Life

Family Life

By Irina Heckmann

2017 | 82 min | Documentary

A home in the German countryside, clean and proper. Against this bucolic setting a grandmother talks about the Siberian labor camps and starts to cry.

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Europa Passage

Europa Passage

2022 | 89 min | Documentary

EUROPA PASSAGE is a profound documentary film by Andrei Schwartz that follows the lives of a group of Romanian Roma over five years. These families commute between their home village of Namaiesti in Romania and Hamburg to earn a living by begging, as there are no job opportunities available to them at home. The film shows the constant challenges and difficulties they face, from discrimination and exclusion from urban emergency programs to the simple living conditions in their village. The story ...

Fraulein

Fraulein

2006 | 77 min | Drama

Ruza left her homeland Serbia over 30 years ago and lives in Zurich. Her everyday life takes place in a meticulously constructed world, until Ana appears one day. Ana, the young woman from Sarajevo, is beautiful, hungry for life, somehow lost – and she upsets Ruza's firmly established order. A tender friendship develops between the two headstrong women. Director Andrea Štaka takes an intimate look at three women in Switzerland who come from different parts of a country that no longer exists (the ...

Natasha

Natasha

2008 | 84 min | Documentary

Citygoers are familiar with the sight of (presumably) Eastern European panhandlers working the streets. But who are they? Filmmaker Ulli Gladik finds out. Natasha was begging in Graz when Gladik met her. Many long conversations later, he accompanied her to her hometown in a former industrial site near Sofia. Clichés about beggars from the former Eastern Bloc dissolve image by image. Natasha is sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes in love or depressed - just as any we all are from time to time. "The ...

The Most Beautiful Country in the World

The Most Beautiful Country in the World

2018 | 101 min | Documentary

A semi-documentary that follows a group of young migrants in Vienna as they negotiate the maze of administrative procedures. In this clash of two worlds, real refugees who live in Austria, such as the young Afghan Bagher, play themselves. Bagher arrived in Vienna in 2015. Local residents defend the status quo against escalating immigration. The refugees have lost their homes and are refugees for a reason. Forced to flee their own countries, they are trying to adapt to the strange new environment. ...

Tomorrow I Leave

Tomorrow I Leave

2024 | 75 min | Documentary

Torn between two worlds: Maria regularly leaves her home in Romania to work as a 24-hour caregiver in Austria. Her sons grow up in Ibănești while she cares for a woman in need of nursing care in Vienna. Every goodbye is difficult, every return is marked by joy, but also by the certainty that she will soon have to leave again. MÂINE MĂ DUC – TOMORROW I LEAVE by Lukas Schöffel and Maria Lisa Pichler is an intimate documentary about the reality of life for many Eastern European caregivers who balance ...

Calabria

Calabria

2016 | 117 min | Documentary

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Those Who Go Those Who Stay

Those Who Go Those Who Stay

2013 | 75 min | Documentary

Nonetheless, the analysis closes without conclusion: it is like an offer to her viewers to draw their own associations, their own connections. Beckermann's great strength becomes clear: the free, spontaneous leap from individuality to universality. "A grim ode to Europe" (indiewire) "Ein Film wie eine musikalische Komposition" (Jan Tabor) This film offers an intentionally unintentional gaze that allows for chance encounters, for stories and memories that lead Ruth Beckermann across Europe and ...

On the margins

On the margins

2015 | 82 min | Documentary

In Margina, Ljupcho Temelkovski accompanies a Roma family in Macedonia. The film observes the laborious everyday life of the characters, marked by deprivation, humiliation and racism. The many-member family lives together in cramped conditions. The men try to earn money with informal odd jobs and show great talent for improvisation. Margina was shot over a long period of time with a 3-person team. The film succeeds in getting surprisingly close to the people in their private everyday lives. The ...

Exit Right

Exit Right

2015 | 3 min | Shorts

Look away or intervene? When a man is victim of unfounded abuse in a packed bus, there is only one passenger who doesn't ignore the situation like everyone else. How do you best confront xenophobia? Is it right to stand up for the one abused or is it too great a risk of becoming a victim too? When a black man is abused by a stranger for no reason in a packed bus, there is only one passenger who doesn't ignore the situation like everyone else. He has the courage to step up and intervene. This doesn’t ...

Every Miracle

Every Miracle

2009 | 27 min | Documentary

A house of uninhabited rooms, somewhere in West Germany – filled with objects from decades past: family photographs on colorful wallpaper, dusty books, postcards, countless clocks. An older woman still lives there, but she does not see these rooms anymore. Her eyesight is fading, and she can no longer go upstairs unaided. But in her daily routines, everything focuses on the here and now: “Where are we gonna go for dinner?” “What’s the weather going to be like?” And, most important of all, “What time ...