In a sterile white examination room, a young woman is asked by a doctor to undress completely. An exhaustive examination of the protagonist’s skin begins during which every centimetre, the palm of her hand, the sole of her foot, the back and also the genital area are closely scrutinised. The doctor meticulously probes every nook and cranny of the young woman’s outer shell until she is able to identify a suspicious birthmark. A timely appointment to remove the mole is made.

Exposed and irritated, the protagonist finds herself confronted with her fears about the surgery and the after-effects of the examination. A tiny birthmark triggers an inner process: an analysis of her own body and the control others are allowed over it. Fragile lines on scarred paper and a tonal design that gives us goosebumps make us participate intensely in her emotions.

Is it possible to get close to someone who sees their sole task in life in losing themself in the parts they play? How can a film portrait be created when every image only contributes to further fictionalization? Who is facing each other when the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred? Katharina Pethke looks back to dissect the past and her contradictory feelings for the celebrated actor Philipp Hochmair, following the lines of her own artistic and personal doubts.

The magnificent black and white images guide the eye from the surfaces to the details, whose meaning the director probes and questions in her subjective, tentative voiceover. The film preserves the rawness of unfinished reflections without getting mired in vagueness. Step by step, the honest assessment of a desire is achieved; a desire which could function only in the delicate balance between attraction and repulsion and from which Katharina Pethke frees herself by adopting a position of artistic distance. Her sometimes self-mocking commentary is supported by dramatic guitar riffs (provided by Hochmair’s band project “Die Elektrohand Gottes”) and underpinned by filmic references, all of which revolve around the making of images and the relationship between reality and imagination.

As she visits an exhibition, a graphic designer is mesmerised by the photocollages of the anti-fascist John Heartfield, who became known as the “montage dada.” Stefanie falls through a vortex of paper and photo snippets into an old-fashioned looking studio. A pair of scissors – an analogue tool she herself hardly uses – attracts her attention. She begins to cut a figure out of cardboard, a miniature version of the artist who at once addresses her and explores his life and works with her. The studio turns out to be a living archive that ceaselessly produces documents and information about Johnny. The research gives Stefanie, stressed and disappointed by her job, new motivation, and the courage to choose a different path as a designer.

Both protagonists have the same profession and find themselves facing the same questions about the significance and recognition of their work. Both are struggling in their own way with frustration and fears, caused by the different social and political circumstances of their generations. The different elements of this animated documentary come together in a dialogic collage that reflects on the mission of art, its educative and critical power, and its potential to bring about changes in our society.

A journey back in time to 1915 Dresden, where Karlchen lives, who dreams of seeing the famous elephants of the Sarrasani Circus one day. To earn the ticket, he delivers potatoes. But his few coins are not enough for the visit. When Karlchen’s dream at last comes within reach, everything turns out different than expected.

Three directors prepare a film about the chemical factory in the Cologne district of Kalk, on whose former grounds a shopping mall has been built. With some self-mockery they talk about their investigation and search for sources, their capitulation to the resistance of the material. Meanwhile, an archivist struggles with a mis-spooled 16mm film. Historical images splutter across the monitor of his analogue editing table. The silhouette of the factory with its towering chimneys is discernible. Site plans are shown, chemicals are blithely mixed. In an album, the filmmakers discover faded photos of female forced labourers. Suddenly, questions arise: Which stories are kept, which forgotten? Throwing away is part of his job, after all, the archivist explains in the finest Rhenish accent. What does this statement mean for the directing trio?

Two young girls are drifting in the water of a public swimming pool. The film adopts this drifting attitude as it follows them through nocturnal Montreal and their daily life. Sometimes the two speak English, sometimes Inuktitut. Kathy and Teresa come from a small Inuit settlement in northern Canada. They show each other smartphone pictures of seals and bears they killed themselves. They read about the special relationship between the Inuit and their sledge dogs, which has lost its importance today. Home assignments are done in a park – the scent of the trees reminds them a little of home. They close their eyes. With great tenderness, the camera captures the deep bond between the two best friends who share the same heritage and language. Kathy has written a moving song in Inuktitut. In simple, clear words, she sings of the feelings and yearnings of a young Indigenous woman.

Men are felling trees in the rain forest, barefoot, using chainsaws to cut through the huge trunks. They live in nature, off nature and against nature. Illegal wood selling seems to be their only chance to feed their families. At the same time, they are destroying – tree by tree – their own livelihood. This quiet observation ends with the arduous transport of the wood out of the forest. Anyone who thinks ahead knows that it will end up in our apartments, too, as a mahogany table or Bangkirai floor.

An infrared dot pattern scans body shapes to supply system information for fascinating volume images. The space casts are virtual sculptures, mouldable, with unstable aggregate states. DJ Dixon’s “Transmoderna” performance is pulverized to the beats of Mëhill’s track “Through Withdrawals”: waves of millions of luminescent coloured microbodies against a black infinity.

Lothar König is an original. The long-term youth pastor from Jena doesn’t fit into any system. In the GDR he was under state surveillance, after reunification he was one of the most tireless warning voices against the growing right-wing radicalism. To this day, he takes to the barricades against the extreme right, often on the frontline. Nevertheless, this film portrait by his son Tilman is not an homage but a critical tribute to an outspoken character forced by retirement to re-invent himself.

Pastor König is not only regarded as one of the figureheads of the left-wing scene that organises punk concerts, rallies and football tournaments with young refugees. He also has a reputation as a fairly challenging personality. Tilman König shows his father only marginally in his role as a church official. Most of all, he introduces a man who can be courageous and determined, but also stubborn and unfair. His film is enjoyably interested above all in the here and now of this man, the things that Lothar still has to come to terms with. How will he manage the transition to retirement after a restless life between community work and political activism? How can the old rhetorical warhorse hold his own among people who really agree with him but seem to move away from him in thought, speech and action? The border-crosser is entering unknown terrain.

For technical reasons – too massive! – this 50-ton bronze colossus was not demolished in 1993. Today it is listed as a historical monument, along with the associated housing estate. A relic from the old days: Today, the raised fist of the former German Communist Party leader and erstwhile GDR hero Ernst Thälmann in the Prenzlauer Berg park defies the collective forgetting of a not-so-long-ago past instead of heralding the victory of communism.

In 1986, an old municipal gasworks in East Berlin made way for a housing estate – and a monument that was controversial even then. Partly imagined, partly remembered and extensively researched throughout, Betina Kuntzsch assembles a complex narrative as part of her project “Vom Sockel Denken” about the Ernst-Thälmann-Memorial in Berlin: about a place full of history, viewed from ten different perspectives. In her omnibus film she skilfully uses various aesthetic and research tools. The successful combination of own footage, animation, archive material and oral history generates a kind of kaleidoscope, a gem of historiographic documentary-making and a parcours through a whole range of documentary film genres.

A new Musifants episode! Grandpa Günter – a retired circus elephant – and grandson Charlie take another musical excursion into the songbook of the 1920s and 1930s. This time, it’s the little green cactus’s birthday and Charlie bakes a cake. No sooner is it on the table, smelling delicious, than a bit is missing. Charlie wants to know who has been sneaking a bite …

The Nepalese shaman Lil Bahadur and his granddaughter Hima have dedicated themselves to the revival of his native language, Kusunda. It’s about more than communication, namely identity, tradition and awareness of one’s own history. The interactive voice-control of this VR experience allows us to learn Kusunda ourselves. We learners become human archives of an all but lost indigenous language.

Inspired by ritual practices from different cultures, the VR experience addresses the loss of a sense of community and empathy, combining modern dance and VR technology to re-examine old rites and reveal their meaningful potential for future societies. The title of the work refers to what legend has it is an “enlightening” potion from ancient Greece.

The chalk chases the shadow. Once it is captured, only traces of the game remain. Drawing, erasing, drawing again on a porous surface. Like on a sloppily wiped blackboard, shades of images that have long ceased to exist shine through. Špela Čadež stages a race between fleeting and manifest forms that – at least in terms of film theory – knows no winner.

Captain Ramadan’s “gym” is located in a dusty residential area near the port of Alexandria. This is where the former professional athlete has coached young women in weightlifting for over twenty years – including his daughter Nahla, the first Egyptian world champion. An extraordinarily intimate portrait of this lone and fighter who raised Egypt’s young athletes to world class level with self-funding, which also puts the focus on a second protagonist: young Asmaa.

Mayye Zayed has followed the Captain’s student, who was fourteen at the start, for four years. Wearing a red Popeye t-shirt and backed by her coach, she fights her way to the global top league matches. The story of the inner highs and lows of the introverted young woman unfolds gently as the camera captures her emotional states precisely without many words. The dramaturgy of the chronological narrative follows the events in the best direct cinema manner, impressively adapting to the rhythm of life – and death. The result is the portrait of an unusual relationship and of a harsh environment that demands more than physical strength from the participants.

The curtain is up, the stage is clear, the microphone on: Let the show begin. The little singer steps forward and everyone is waiting with bated breath what singing talents are about to be heard. She clears her throat one more time and then it starts. But what is this? She’s not really going to lick the microphone like a popsicle, is she? Surely an idea we’ve all had at one time or another!