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Pelin Esmer

Director
Pelin Esmer is a Turkish director known for her work in independent cinema. She studied film at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul and made her feature film debut with "The Play" in 2005. Esmer gained international recognition with her critically acclaimed films such as "10 to 11" (2009) and "Watchtower" (2012). Her work often explores themes of human connection and loneliness. Esmer has received several awards for her directing, including the Best Director award at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival for "Watchtower."

Films

Queen Lear

Queen Lear

By Pelin Esmer

2019 | 84 min | Documentary

Heartwarming doc about the transformative experience of an all-woman theater group touring rural Turkey performing Shakespeare’s King Lear.

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Birds of September

Birds of September

2013 | 99 min | Documentary

People are invited to share a personal moment. It is a thoughtful portrait of some of the city's inhabitants as they sit at the back of the van and express their innermost thoughts. Sarah Francis' documentary BIRDS OF SEPTEMBER is her debut film and was screened at CPH: DOX and the Art of the Real New York. "A portrait of a city and the people who live there, which amazingly enough manages to unite a number of otherwise highly different genres into a unified whole. An original and accomplished ...

Sweat

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 ...

Gate #5

Gate #5

2011 | 84 min | Documentary

Through eloquent descriptions of former truck drivers, El Habre presents The Lebanon of the 1960s to the present day. They were once young, thrived on adventure and had choices. In the 1960s and 70s thousands of young Lebanese men left their villages and made a new life in Beirut. Truck driving became a lifestyle, income, money, and a vibrant urban life.

Ramba Zamba

Ramba Zamba

2023 | 89 min | Documentary

RAMBA ZAMBA is a film about inclusion, integration and participation based on the theater Rambazamba from Berlin, which is an example of how the same works in this case of disabled and non-disabled people / actors at best. A theater that has been living and working out this inclusive, integrative togetherness impressively every day for thirty years now. The film accompanies the mentally and physically impaired actors and actresses on film over the course of half a year on the basis of Bernd Freytag's ...

Lifetimeshort

Lifetimeshort

2009 | 87 min | Comedy

Theater director Gesine Danckwart's feature debut LIFETIMESHORT is an ironic comedy about Berlin big city girls and how they cope with life and love in a late capitalist urban setting. ACHTUNG BERLIN 2009 Danckwart contrasts the women's tumultuous lives against a backdrop of cool, almost clinical-looking Berlin architecture. The city becomes another character in the story. Danckwart collaborated with her six actresses over the course of a year to develop the film's situations and dialogue. The result ...

The Circle in Which She Travels

The Circle in Which She Travels

2010 | 25 min | Drama

19-year-old Luisa travels to Mexico to search for her Mexican roots, which her mother kept secret from her. She wants to find her grandfather, whom she has never met. All she knows is that he lived in a small mountain town in Mexico and that the name is “Villa”. What she doesn't know is that the famous Mexican revolutionary from 1910 has the same name and that every Mexican knows the name of the national hero. During her search, she meets a young man named Memo, who offers to help her. Torn between ...

Towards Jerusalem

Towards Jerusalem

1990 | 85 min | Documentary

The film moves from the lights of Tel Aviv discos to the immigrant housing of Ethiopians to the burial site of Samuel the Prophet, capturing the voices and vistas of contemporary Israeli culture and politics.(National Center for Jewish Film) "An expressive overview of Israel in 1990" (Süddeutsche Zeitung) What became of the dream of a Jewish homeland? In this documentary road movie, Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann records the diverse views and activities of Israelis and Arabs as she travels ...

Unmensch

Unmensch

2016 | 26 min | Drama

In Jasmin Baumgartner's short film, three young actors take part in an experimental play called 'Youth Sucks' at the Vienna Theater. The situation quickly becomes explosive. The main actor is supposed to improvise a monologue that comes across as left-liberal self-abuse of a politically impotent young generation pretending to care about the world. While the ensemble members Dany (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) and Patrick (Dominik Brauweiler) perform appropriately with emotion and expression, Jasper (Daniel ...

Final Consequence

Final Consequence

2021 | 24 min | Drama

Uwe has been rehearsing intensively with his amateur theater group for the play “Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.” But their PR stunt in the forest backfires and the newspaper reports on the return of the wolf; the citizens are on high alert. A campaign team is determined to seize the moment and use the issue of “security” to restore the weakened politician Friedman to her former glory. And Uwe? He sticks to his premiere, after all, it promises to be a full house. On the evening of the ...