

Manuel Rees
DirectorFilms

Recommended for you

Who Am I Happy
2012 | 26 min | Drama
At the centre of this film is a young transperson, his question about his own identity and his desire to belong - even if you deviate slightly from the norm. Alicia (Ekaterina Tafel) is 15 years old and lives at a group home for youth with special needs. She wants to become a singer and longs for recognition. One day, a new teen, Mika, is seated at the dinner table. Alicia notices that this boy not only pays attention to her, but is also somehow different. A flirtation begins, but when Alicia walks ...

Amorous, Antiquated, Audacious
2009 | 64 min | Documentary
This ambitious directorial debut chronicles lesbian lifestyles and social networking in Vienna in the 1950s and 60s. In those years, Vienna was a drab and traditional place. The scene - if it existed at all - was male- oriented, and the few bars where women did meet were not particularly inviting. Lesbian life was characterized by invisibility and, if anything, was criminalized. Three eyewitnesses of that era talk in an eloquently and refreshingly (self-)ironic way about what it was like to feel ...

When I went to visit the boys
2024 | 90 min | Documentary
In southern Burgenland, a region where time seems to stand still, a filmmaker encounters men of different ages and backgrounds. With her cell phone camera, she documents conversations about work, family, dreams, and the challenges of modern life. The men open up, share their stories, and reflect on their roles in a changing society. What begins as personal field research unfolds into a quiet but profound portrait of a region and its men. Initial strangeness gives way to trust. The men talk about ...

Be There
2017 | 81 min | Queer
The architect Alain lives secluded in his luxurious finca on the Mallorcan hinterland. He avoids contact with other humans until he has to go out into the world. Alain, an architect, lives secluded in his luxurious villa on the island outback of Mallorca. He wears only women's clothes and avoids contact with other people - even his house keepers. Eventually he is forced to break out of his isolation, but neither he nor the outside world seem ready for it. Lotta Doll's debut film BE THERE, filmed ...

Sweat
2014 | 30 min | Queer
Sweat tells of the last days of the friendship of two girls. Marion and Elisa live in a village that offers them nothing. They roam the neighborhood, go to the disco, watch videos, swim in the pond and fight. In search of emotion and boundaries, they dive into an aggressive world, where they give free rein to anger against the ordinary and learn about the new, unexpectedly erupting forces within themselves as a result. In the beautifully photographed vacuum of a village cosmos, director Iris Blauensteiner ...

Bacha Posh
2015 | 29 min | Icons & Media Art
Afghan wisdom says that if you have many daughters, you can raise your youngest as a boy and the next child will be a boy. "Bacha posh" are the names of these girls and Farah Noz is one such girl. But instead of becoming a "girl" again after the birth of her brother, the 14-year-old decided to remain a boy. Elaha is different, she made her own decision to wear men's clothes on the street and find her female role on her own. In their documentary installation, Ginan Seidl and Yalda Afsah show the ...

FtWTF - Female to What The ...
2015 | 92 min | Documentary
After the transition is before the transition. This documentary begins where transbiographies often end. It tells the story of six young people who experience their trans identities in very different ways. Katharina Lampert and Cordula Thym conduct profound and disarmingly honest interviews full of humor about the tightrope walk and the fault lines where gender and identity emerge. The film's examination of masculinity in the queer scene is also a key theme. "The film creates space for non-binary ...

The same, but different — The role of women in the Catholic Church
2025 | 34 min | Documentary
Two Catholic women with opposing views explain why they are for or against changing the image of women in the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church, the ordained ministries of deacon, priest, and bishop are traditionally reserved for men. This rule is based on church teachings and traditions that have existed for centuries. The Bible often describes women in roles as mothers and wives, which further shapes the traditional image of women in the Church. The documentary film THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT ...

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 ...

Where to, Miss?
2016 | 83 min | Documentary
In this documentary, Devki, an Indian woman, defies patriarchal resistance and gets her driver's license to become a cab driver in Delhi. She works in Delhi, of all places, where even emancipated women only go out on the streets at night in the company of men or in groups. She applies to the "Woman on Wheels" initiative. Here, women are trained as cab drivers so that they can become financially independent and drive other women home safely. But Devki's family has no understanding for her plans. ...