Waking Up in Silence

Two men, the hint of a sofa corner and a pile of letters. Using minimalist means, the film tells the story of two brothers caught between exile in a foreign country and resistance in the underground. It takes us back to the time when the revolution seized power in Iran and tells of life between the fronts. Daniel Asadi Faezi sketches the story of his father and his brothers - based on correspondence that has lain in the cellar for 30 years.

Lake Urmia in Northern Iran was once the largest lake in the Middle East. Human influence brought upon a devastating drought that the lake could not withstand, and today, just 5% of the original lake remains.

The Aral “Sea” powerfully reveals the deadly impact of human activities—in this case, the intensive cultivation of cotton in the USSR—on an ecosystem. Daniel Asadi Faezi (The Absence of Apricots, VdR 2018) and Mila Zhluktenko (Find Fix Finish, VdR 2017) film the shore’s last inhabitants, who have lost their way of life to the desertification of their environment. A beautiful and poignant work about our probable future.

Iranian filmmaker Narges Kalhor is forced to confront her family legacy and German bureaucracy when she seeks to remove an overly symbolic word from her name.

A documentary fairy-tale about the struggle for identity in the Hunza Valley set in a village located in the Northern-Pakistan somewhere between the past and the future. A magnificent turquoise lake in between rough, steep cliff surrounds the small village. But the lake hasn’t been always there. One day, an enormous landslide blocked a river. In a few months, this river turned into a huge lake, which is now up to 30km long. Thousands of homes and fields were flooded. Entire villages disappeared forever. Thousands of people got dislocated and had to look for different places where to live. What is left are the stories of those that once used to live there which are passed on from generation to generation.

Immigrant workers build a shopping mall for the upcoming 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 2016, nine people with migrant backgrounds are killed in a racist attack at the same mall.

After studying graphic design, Aline is reluctantly starting her practical training as an art teacher. When her boyfriend leaves her on top of that, she runs off to live with her parents in the countryside. In this moment of crisis, she encounters a Catholic priest who is able to talk about faith outside of religion. Aline is intrigued, but remains critical.

Munich, 3079. In a world without sun, the survivors fight their last war. Loneliness is the enemy. A young man is driven by his broken heart to make a fateful decision.

Takatak is a dish and a profession. The sounds of the maker's knife and his movements merge into an aesthetic performance – a soundcarpet of natural and unnatural noise. The man gets distracted by the observation of hawks in the sky. They are gliding, they are chasing each other, they observe the world below them.

One night with the guest and workers at the Kyiv Opera House in Ukraine.

The Balkan war of the 1990s was the cause of the disappearance of thousands of people. Their mortal remains are in danger of remaining lost forever. Bereaved families and survivors place their hopes in excavations and in the work of science.

One would not expect less life than in the desert of central Iran. But there is one man facing the power of nature: Mohammad Arefi is a shepherd - body and soul. For more than two generations his family has been doing this demanding job. Every day he takes care of over 300 goats and sheep.

Inspired by the events around the life of Lev Rebet, Ukrainian author and editor-in-chief of the Munich-based exile newspaper "Ukrainian Independist", the film portrays the fates of the Ukrainian diaspora in the past and present.