This year, documentaries are as strongly represented in the program of the 58th Hof International Film Festival as ever before. With 34 long documentaries, we look at the world around us and at currently relevant topics. Films from countries such as Italy, Spain, Serbia, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Bangladesh and the United Kingdom confront us with serious topics such as environmental destruction, wars and their consequences, climate change, human rights and the shift to the right in society.
But they also show the colorful side and the punk of life. These are insights into living communities or portraits of unconventional artists (-communities) such as the group from Atelier23 in our opening film ZEPPELIN OBEN RECHTS. It also includes artistic personalities and individualists such as the 90-year-old sculptor Flavio Paolucci, the actress Barbara Sukowa and the author, lawyer and film critic Dietrich Kuhlbrodt.
With his 4-hour film OCCUPIED CITY, made during the pandemic, Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen travels to Amsterdam and connects the past ten years with the occupation of the city by the German army during the Second World War. The film is a meditation on remembrance and a warning against the rise of right-wing extremism, and not just in the microcosm of Amsterdam. Also represented is Swiss director Samir (Retrospective 2019 in Hof) with his documentary DIE WUNDERSAME VERWANDLUNG DER ARBEITERKLASSE IN AUSLÄNDER, Katrin Schloesser presents Men´s worlds in her second directorial work BESUCH IM BUBENLAND / WHEN I WENT TO VISIT THE BOYS and Paul Poet shows his controversial DER SOLDAT MONIKA / SOLDIER MONIKA.
Wir stellen Ihnen diese Filme vor:
TROG, Director: Ella Hochleitner, Austria 2023
Eleven children remember the farmhouse of their childhood and their mother and create a sensitive portrait of the family.
A STRANGER QUEST, Director: Andrea Gatopoulos, Italy 2024
The film accompanies David Rumsey on a road trip on which he must deal with the ghosts of the past and finiteness.
ALLES OPTIMIERT / OPTIMIZING EVERYTHING, Director: Florian Karner, Germany 2023
The documentary sheds light on the life of Charly, a man in his early 60s who has reinvented himself under his stage name to avoid vulnerability and to protect himself.
BESUCH IM BUBENLAND / WHEN I WENT TO VISIT THE BOYS, Director: Katrin Schloesser, Austria 2024
Set in southern Burgenland, Austria, the documentary tells the stories of men of different ages who talk about their work, their everyday lives and the changes in the perception of masculinity.
CYBORG: A DOCUMENTARY, Director: Carey Born, UK, Germany, Spain, USA 2023
Colour-blind artist Neil Harbisson is the world's first formally recognized cyborg. An antenna has been implanted in his head permanently, enabling him to hear colors.
DER SOLDAT MONIKA / SOLDIER MONIKA, Director: Paul Poet, Austria 2024
Monika Donner is an elite transsexual soldier and the figurehead for the rights of the LGBTQ community, as well as a book author favored by the political far right.
DIE STATIK DER TRÄUME / THE STATIC OF DREAMS, Director: Filippa Bauer, Germany 2024
The now uninhabited houses in the former Yugoslavia, which bear witness to the planned return from Germany, are often under construction or in danger of falling apart. The five protagonists have to deal with their belonging and homeland.
DIE WUNDERSAME VERWANDLUNG DER ARBEITERKLASSE IN AUSLÄNDER, Director: Samir, Switzerland, Italy 2024
Today, nobody talks about the “working class” anymore. And the term “worker” has become synonymous with “foreigner”.
DURCHGANGSLAND / TRANSITLAND, Director: Daniel Fill, Austria 2024
Fortezza is a dark village where people work at night and underground. Despite the harsh conditions, the construction workers find a sense of community in their work and in not belonging to the people there.
ECHTE SCHWEIZER / MY SWISS ARMY, Director: Luka Popadić, Switzerland, Serbia 2024
Officers in the Swiss army who are connected by the fact that their parents had to leave their home country. Although these families are now Swiss, they have retained strong ties to their culture of origin.
EINFACH MACHEN – SHE-PUNKS VON 1977 BIS HEUTE / DON'T TALK, DO! - SHE-PUNKS FROM 1977 UNTIL TODAY, Director: Reto Caduff, Germany, Switzerland 2024
When punk reached the German, Austrian and Swiss clubs, it promised rebellion and self-empowerment. Alongside the male punk top dogs, this was especially true for the women in the scene.
ELEVATED ART, Director: Timian Hopf, Germany, Italy 2024
Contemporary art embedded in the spectacular mountain landscape of the Dolomites - a completely non-accessible exhibition. Who is doing something like this? And why?
FINDING PLANET PORNO: THE WILD JOUNREY OF AMERICAN CINEMA`S FIRST OUTLAW, Director: Christian Genzel, Austria 2024
Finding Planet Porno approaches porn director Howard Ziehm on a personal level and paints a portrait of an unusual cinematic outsider and shows an era of great social upheaval.
FLAVIO PAOLUCCI. FROM GUELMIM TO BIASCA, Director: Villi Hermann, Switzerland 2024
A portrait of Flavio Paolucci, who was supposed to paint a white wall at an exhibition about himself in 2022. As the pandemic prevented him from traveling, he created the mural in his studio and then destroyed it.
HABIBI, A SONG FOR MY FRIENDS, Director: Florent Gouelou, France 2024
The film portrays five drag artists as they prepare for the last cabaret of the season and shows the connection between the artists and the social commitment of the institution in Paris.
ICE AGED, Director: Alexandra Sell, Germany 2024
The film accompanies six women and men from all over the world to the World Amateur Figure Skating Championships in Oberstdorf. But the road to the Alps is a rocky one.
IM SCHATTEN DER TRÄUME / IN THE SHADOWS OF DREAMS, Director: Martin Witz, Switzerland, Germany 2024
Composer Michael Jary and lyricist Bruno Balz were the most successful duo in German-language pop music and cinema for over 40 years. The film tells the story of the eventful lives of the two artist friends.
KNOCHEN AUF URLAUB / BONES ON HOLIDAY, Director: Natalia Vitovtov, Michael Stock, Germany 2024
The film deals with the relative certainty of imminent death and the hoped-for self-determination as well as the emotional ambivalence of those affected and those who will be left behind.
NACKT, Director: Elsa Loy, Anne Roemeth, Germany 2024
The documentary is dedicated to the questions: Who are the female faces of the film industry? What are their voices, what experiences have they had, and above all, what do they want for the future?
NONCONFORM, Director: Arne Körner, Germany 2024
Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, a pensioner in Blankenese, Hamburg is a multifaceted character. He takes us on a journey through Germany's post-war history, reflecting on his life with humor while sharing memories.
OCCUPIED CITY, Director: Steve McQueen, Netherlands, UK, USA 2023
The film is an extended meditation on remembrance, examining the past to better confront our shared future in the face of rising far-right nationalism.
PANDORAS VERMÄCHTNIS / PANDORA'S LEGACY, Director: Angela Christlieb, Austria 2024
A journey through the family universe of GW Pabst, giant of early cinema, told through the eyes of the woman who stood by his side artistically and privately throughout his life: Trude Pabst. A film about dreams and traumas and about why we are who we are.
POLIZEIAKADEMIE / POLICE ACADEMY BERLIN, Director: Moritz Schulz, Germany 2024
The film reveals the challenges of structural racism and training at the Berlin Police Academy and reflects the growing diversity and profound changes in German society.
QRT: SIGN, ZOMBIE, TEQNO - A NECROLOGUE, Director: Manuel Stettner, Germany 2024
The documentary approaches QRT's life and creates an anecdotal biography based on interviews with friends who look back on their time together until QRT's tragic drug-related death in '96.
SEXPLORATION – WIE WILL ICH`S WIRKLICH? / SEXPLORATION - HOW DO I REALLY WANT IT?, Director: Lisa Zielke, Germany 2024
Six people perform in front of the camera, actions they have chosen in relation to their own sexuality. A film project about sexual empowerment.
SUKOWA – SPIELEN WIE EIN KIND / SUKOWA - PLAYFUL LIKE A CHILD, Director: Irene Höfer, Anke Sterneborg, Germany 2024
Barbara Sukowa, Fassbinder star, icon and idol, is constantly facing new challenges. The film shows the path of an internationally successful actress up to the present day.
TRANS MEMORIA, Director: Victoria Verseau, Sweden, France 2024
Victoria, Athena and Aamina explore themselves and navigate loss and introspection as women, interweaving past regrets and future hopes in a poetic documentary about embracing the true self.
VON KINDERN UND BÄUMEN – EIN JAHR IN DER WALDSCHULE / OF CHILDREN AND TREES - A YEAR IN A FOREST SCHOOL, Director: Nathalie Pfister, Switzerland 2024
The film follows children at a forest school who play and learn outside in all weathers. They develop personal responsibility, courage, imagination and empathy and find their own role in the community.
WHO`S AFRAID OF NATHAN LAW?, Director: Joe Piscatella, UK 2023
Nathan Law leads a strike for autonomous elections in Hong Kong. He is sent to prison while a new generation, characterized by mistrust of peaceful protests, emerges. During Hong Kong's political crisis, he must decide on his role and future.
YOPOUGON – WAY BACK HOME, Director: Alexis Amitirigala, Switzerland 2023
When his recording studio in Zurich is torn down, Swiss hit producer Dodo decides to travel around the world. Four years later, he sets off, but his “Back to the Roots” trip turns out differently than planned.
YOURS IN FREEDOM, BILL BAIRD, Director: Rebecca Cammisa, Austria 2023
Bill Baird won a historic victory in 1972, providing access to contraception and strengthening women's rights to reproductive self-determination. However, he was later forgotten. Decades later, 16-year-old Latina Jada Portillo from Arkansas rediscovers Baird as her generation once again struggles for personal freedoms.
TALES OF BANISHANTA, Director: Md Shahadat Hossain, Bangladesh 2024
The film is a cinematic anthology about prostitution on the island of Banishanta in Bangladesh, where around 150 girls and women are dependent on the sex trade in a state-licensed brothel on the banks of the Pashur River, constantly struggling with bad weather and the climate.
Further information on the films and the program are available on our website.
The 58th Hof International Film Festival will take place from October 22 to 27, 2024 (plus7streamdays to November 03, 2024). The accreditation is open for trade visitors and press. You also may sign up as well as for the newsletter.
Yours Hof Film Festival Team
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