I am Anastasia
2019 | 95 min | Documentary
A trans woman in the Bundeswehr? Ever since Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia Biefang joined the troops, this has been a reality.
Samanta Sokolowski
ActorBorn in Warsaw in 1993, filmmaker Samanta Sokolowski initially studied philosophy and theater studies in her hometown. She then completed a degree in directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). Her medium-length graduation film, 'Love, Duty & Hope' (2024), gained significant attention and was nominated for the competition at the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival, among others. Additionally, the work received a nomination for the prestigious FIRST STEPS Award in 2024, the same year Sokolowski participated in the Berlinale Talents program.
Films
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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 ...
Mutzenbacher
2022 | 101 min | Documentary
Ruth Beckermann places an ad in a paper inviting people to audition for a film based on a well-known pornographic text. They read passages from an anonymously published 1906 novel, which is still controversial today due to its explicit depiction of child and female sexuality. Beckermann confronts a hundred men with excerpts from “Josefine Mutzenbacher or The Story of a Viennese Prostitute” at a time when sex is more omnipresent than ever, yet encounters a morally highly armed environment. The filmmaker, ...
Burden
2023 | 65 min | Documentary
Thirteen men gather in a remote country house in Catalonia for an intense weekend retreat. Under the guidance of anthropologist and therapist Rai Crespí, they confront their inner blockages and wounds. Through physical and emotional exercises, they explore new ways of being men. The participants, shaped by traditional notions of masculinity, seek authentic forms of expression for their identities. They share their experiences, fears, and hopes in a safe space characterized by trust and openness. Miguel ...
The Bitter Apple From the Tree
2015 | 29 min | Documentary
A summer in South Korea: a filmmaker returns to her home country, driven by her complex relationship with her mother. In a small apartment in Incheon, an intimate story unfolds about a woman whose life has been shaped by disappointment and conformity. The youngest of four sisters, born unwanted, she left home at the age of twelve. Since then, she has struggled, marked by the expectations of society and her own family. The daughter's camera captures moments of intimacy and confrontation, an interplay ...
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 ...
Boy
2015 | 30 min | Documentary
The film follows an Afghan girl who is raised as a boy and a young Afghan singer who disguises herself as a boy in order to lead a "freer life". The narration thrives on cropped, close-up observations and athmospheric descriptive landscape shots of urban and rural spaces. "An eye-opener for an unfree world and a devastating look at the system that does not accept gender beyond male or female. With the Taliban coming to power in August 2021, this film seems more timely and important than ever. It ...
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 ...
Do Not Fear
2019 | 66 min | Documentary
What happens when a very popular village priest decides after 27 years of successful community work to finally face a lifelong issue and publicly announces his transgender identity? The rumors that he was wearing women's clothes forces pastor Hans-Gerd Spörkel to take a break. Shortly thereafter, his wife separates from him, and the village turns their backs on him. Half a year later, she resolutely returns as Elke Spörkel and holds her first service as a woman. After a controversial discussion, ...
The Sleeper
2018 | 17 min | Shorts
This documentary portrays the biographies of two women who slowly disappear behind the role of housewife until they snap and become aggressors. Two newspaper articles, ten years apart, two different women, the same wording. Up to the moment of the appearance in these newspapers, both women were invisible as individuals, concealed by their roles as wives and homemakers. It was only through acts of violence that, for a brief moment, did they claim visibility. THE SLEEPER revolves around the time ...
Soldatin
2024 | 23 min | Documentary
A young woman commutes between two worlds: while serving in the German Armed Forces, she is preparing for a six-month deployment to Mali – with machine gun training, marching orders, and military drill. At the same time, she lives a different life: in an aesthetic clinic, she treats the faces of a modern affluent society with Botox. A fascinating contrast emerges between the barracks and the beauty salon – between preparations for war and beauty routines, obedience and self-realization, harshness ...