„Echoes of Movement“ by Hildegard Alina Oehler (NRW) & Valerie-Malin Schmid (Bavaria) Experimental documentary film about the Afro-German ballet dancer James Saunders, 20,000 Euros

The Cologne-based dancer James Saunders fell to his death in 1996 during a performance at the Museum Ludwig. Saunders’ central themes were identity, transformation and gender. His work is to be reinterpreted with contemporary dancers. With the help of surrealistic 3D landscapes on an LED volume, a narrative space is created for the dancers.

„Between two times“ by Daniel Kötter (Berlin) & Miedya Mahmod (NRW) Experimental documentary, road movie and political landscape film, 20,000 Euros

Miedya Mahmod’s father Salah is a survivor of the 1988 poison gas attack in the Iran-Iraq war. The film examines how such violence inscribes itself into the landscape and the human psyche. To this end, Miedya and Salah Mahmod travel along his escape route at the time in the opposite direction, from Germany to the Autonomous Republic of Kurdistan in Iraq. The main aim is to investigate German responsibility for the attack.

„OH! YOU PRETTY THINGS“ by Nicola Fegg (Berlin) Experimental documentary film about the AI-generated supermodel Shudu, 20,000 Euros

Fegg wants to explore the limits of the hybrid form with her film and thus create a science fiction hybrid documentary. The focus is on the AI-generated supermodel Shudu and her creator Cameron-James Wilson, as well as the three women who provide their bodies and voices as a blueprint for Shudu. The modeling business is critically examined. On the one hand, the hybrid documentary concept has an accompanying, analytical approach and also shows the genesis and reception of Shudu. At the same time, it is intended to show the grievances in the fashion business and the new opportunities that Shudu offers. On the other hand, a fictional level is to be developed that creates a new reality in which Shudu is an independent character and feels emotions.

„Im Takt des Puzelbaums“ by Britta Wauer (Berlin) Portrait film about Anni Sauer with AI-generated visuals, 20,000 Euros

The documentary film about Anni Sauer will work with a special visual layer that brings archive material back to life through AI. Sauer founded and led an ensemble of children in the former GDR that conveyed cosmopolitanism and a free spirit. Sauer herself was arrested as a Jew on the run from the Nazis and spent 20 years in a Soviet prison camp. After her release, she was not allowed to talk about it in the GDR. Wauer, herself an Ensemble child, draws on memories from other Ensemble children, friends, acquaintances, families and archive documents.

„Monologue“ (AT) by Michael Fetter Nathansky (NRW) Dystopian family drama with ‘elevated horror’ elements, 20,000 Euros

When Europe is infected by a language virus, all people do is talk to themselves without interruption. They are no longer able to communicate at all. A family infected by the virus must invent new forms of language in order to save the greatest human ability: dialog.