Without Borders Film Festival features hidden gems
Bauhaus founders, an untameable child, a Macedonian woman grapples with her conservative ideals, and a tale of robot friends: The Without Borders Film Festival in Bad Saarow again offers a diverse and compelling program.
Spotlight on the Bauhaus era
This year, two episodes of the TV series "Die neue Zeit" ("New Times") will open the festival in Bad Saarow. In keeping with the Bauhaus centennial, the German TV production highlights the problems faced by the progressive Bauhaus school amid rising conservatism. The series focuses on founder Walter Gropius and Dörte Helm, a talented and rebellious art student.
Not to be tamed
A feather in the cap for the Bad Saarow film event is Nora Fingscheidt's film debut, "System Crasher," which won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival this year and was chosen as the German entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2020 Oscars. It tells the story of a young family that struggles to a deal with a unpredictable and highly aggressive member — the daughter Benni.
"God exists, her name is Petrunya"
In a Macedonian village, a priest tosses a cross into a stream every year. Whoever pulls it out is supposed to win happiness and prosperity. Petrunya is the lucky recipient this year, however men are only allowed to take part in the ritual. Undeterred, the unemployed woman wants to keep the cross, leading to an outcry in the conservative town.
My friend, the robot?
Robots with human traits are among us, at least according to Isa Willinger's award-winning documentary "Hi, AI." But can they sustain emotional ties, a feeling of intimacy? The film offers an intelligent and ironic look at the man-machine relationship.
Shattered ideals
In "Sealed lips," director Bernd Böhlich tells the story of a woman who struggled to reconcile socialist ideals and East German Communist party politics. A stalwart communist wrongly imprisoned in the Soviet Union for espionage, she later tries to start a new life in East Germany. By 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, she has become completely embittered.
Rebellion against the ruling system
Margarethe von Trota's 1981 feature film "Marianne and Juliane" is about two sisters committed to social change in the 1970s. One is a journalist, the other a terrorist. The social drama is based on the biographies of the sisters Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin and won numerous awards, including the Golden Lion in Venice.