KinoTage

A friendship born from anthropogenic loss of home: when the village where 11-year-old Ben and his family live has to give way to open-cast lignite mining, they move to the city. There, Ben meets Tariq, whose family has fled Syria. Though they start out as competitors, the shared experience of a new beginning soon welds them together at school as well as the football club.

 

In her visually playful and provocative science‑fiction film, Sophie Linnenbaum imagines a strictly hierarchical three‑class society on the brink of revolt. A sixteen‑year‑old  schoolgirl is abruptly displaced from her privileged world and finds herself in the slums, where she forms unexpected friendships and navigates a coming‑of‑age journey within a surreal film world that critically reflects themes of exclusion, xenophobia, and capitalist structures.
 

Caught between duty and desire, Tilda has spent years keeping her family afloat, working, studying and raising her little sister Ida, because their mother battles an alcohol addiction. When a new love and a life‑changing opportunity in Berlin beckon, she must decide what she owes to the ones she loves, and what she owes herself.
 

Spring 1945 on the North Sea island of Amrum: twelve-year-old Nanning looks after his family whilst his father, an SS-officer, is at war. As the Nazis’ defeat becomes increasingly clear and their ideology begins to crumble, his mother sinks deeper and deeper into despair. In an attempt to cheer her up, Nanning uncovers painful truths about his family and realises that the greatest danger does not always come from outside. A sensitive and moving film about the end of childhood, set against the striking backdrop of the North Sea.

Light, playful and humorous, Julian Radlmaier's sun drenched film interweaves the stories of three women and one man to tell a tale of inequality, escape and uncertainty, but also of freedom and friendship. An alchemy of encounters, including with ghosts, set in a romantic small town in eastern Germany, where, according to a popular song, the most beautiful roses bloom.

In the botanical garden of the medieval university town of Marburg, Germany, a majestic ginkgo tree observes three human lives over more than a century. What connects them is a shared curiosity about how plants perceive the world and their inventive search for ways to understand them. Visually stunning, Ildikó Enyedi’s film is a subtle and thought-provoking exploration of the hidden bonds between humans and nature, and of the different rhythms of time.
 

A prince on a flying horse, evil sorcerers, daring witches, magnificent palaces and wild landscapes: all this and more brings to life the magical world of Lotte Reiniger’s magical masterpiece, inspired by the tales from One Thousand and One Nights and the Chinese shadow theatre. Celebrate with us the 100th birthday of Reiniger’s enchanting silhouette animation and be swept away by her extraordinary craftsmanship and imagination.
The screening will be followed by a free stop-motion workshop for children. 
 

Haghi is not only the head of a respectable banking firm but also the mastermind of an international espionage network involved in robbery, murder, and extortion. Young agent Donald Tremaine is tasked with tracking him down. But when Haghi learns of the investigation, he orders the Russian agent Sonja to eliminate Tremaine... Following his monumental, though initially unsuccessful, film Metropolis, Fritz Lang directed this fast-paced and richly inventive thriller, now widely regarded as having helped establish the modern spy genre.

At the age of 20, Joachim is unexpectedly accepted into the renowned acting school in Munich and moves in with his eccentric grandparents. Between the bizarre challenges of acting school and the unusual, often alcohol-infused rituals of his grandparents, Joachim tries to find himself and his role in life. From the producers of Toni Erdmann and based on Joachim Meyerhoff’s eponymous bestselling novel, this is a bittersweet true story about a young man caught between two worlds.

In a live online conversation on Tuesday, 29th September, John Airlie (Localisation Operations (dubbing and subtitling) at the Walt Disney Company and Associate lecturer in Film at Birkbeck University)will speak to the Goethe-Institut about his career and experiences with learning German.

Inspired by Lotte Reiniger's groundbreaking animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed, we invite children (aged 9 - 14) to create their own shadow puppets and discover the basics of animation. Using simple craft materials, we will design characters and experiment with movement, storytelling and light before working together to create a short stop-motion film sequence. A fun and creative introduction to the art of animation for young filmmakers and storytellers.