Participants & Projects
Masterschool 2010
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Name:Daniel BachmannCompany:Salz & PfefferPlace:Ludwigsburg, GermanyNationality:GermanProject:Bee different!Genre:Human Interest, Nature DocumentaryText:
Bee Different is a touching story about three beekeepers, all great individuals, who care for their bees with the same love and concern they show their own families. Despite their different backgrounds, characters and skills, Peter, Michael and Stephan each believe they hold the key to a worldwide problem: Billions of honey bees die every year. Bee Different tells their story and reveals how their views could affect us all.
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Name:Tatiana BrandrupCompany:Place:Moscow, RussiaNationality:RussianProject:My Housing Block in MoscowGenre:Investigative DocumentaryText:
“My house in Moscow” is an investigation into the deeper reasons of xenophobia among Russians. As the only western foreigner living there I will explore the universe of my housing block in Moscow. I will attempt to get to know the white middle class Russians who live in the building and the Kirgiz immigrants working there. What do they think about each other? Why do these worlds exist so closely to each other with so little contact?
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Name:Amalia CarandiniCompany:Doc Art s.r.l.Place:Rome, ItalyNationality:ItalianProject:The Mafia's MasterpieceGenre:Arts & CultureText:
What does Caravaggio have to do with the Mafia? This is the story of a very special kidnapping: the theft of “La Natività”, one of the most important and beautiful paintings made by Caravaggio. A story which started in Palermo in 1969 but is still ongoing, because the painting has vanished for good. After decades of silence, on December 2009 Gaspare Spatuzza, an important supergass, talked about the painting again. In the same period Lucia Rossi, a magistrate from the anti-Mafia pool in Palermo, has decided to reopen the investigation. She believes that the painting was never destroyed and that it is in the hands of the last great Mafia boss, alone able to understand its true value: Matteo Messina Denaro.Following Lucia Rossi’s investigation, the documentary will try to make light to one of the most mysterious kidnapping case in the world.
Team member:Vanni Gandolfo -
Name:Christine DaumCompany:Thumbs Up! Christine Daum FilmproduktionPlace:Berlin, GermanyNationality:GermanProject:Dead for Now (Previous: Dr Frankenstein in the Land of the Bolsheviks)Genre:Historical DocumentaryText:
It seems like Halloween in Revolutionary Russia as top scientists carry out macabre experiments in their quest to live forever, never age, raise the dead and colonize space to give the immortals room to live.
Team member:Nelson Farber -
Name:Corinna EngelhardtCompany:Leonardo Film GmbHPlace:Munich, GermanyNationality:GermanProject:Toxic Harvest – A story of revolt, greed and hopeGenre:Social Issues, Environment, Investigative, Current AffairsText:
Cancer is the new epidemic in Punjab, India. The reason: the farmland, water and crops are contaminated with highly toxic pesticides, which are banned in the rest of the world. Aashish lost his father in the cancer epidemic, and now wants to abandon pesticides and start growing organic crops. The pesticide industry is alarmed by the organic movement and fights back. They argue organic farming will never be able to feed 1.2 billion people. Will Aashish lose his harvest and family income, or will he make an example of how the Punjabi can finally stop their toxic harvests?
Team member:Elmar Bartlmae -
Name:Janine FinlayCompany:Fin Films LtdPlace:London, United KingdomNationality:BritishProject:Climate Psychology for DummiesGenre:Popular Science and CultureText:
If you care about the planet's future, but you're also thinking - "Oh no! Not another documentary about climate change!" – then this film is for you. This is assuredly not another finger-pointing, apocalyptic vision of climate change, but rather a light-hearted look at our responses to it. Whilst people grow weary of the science and politics, they are perennially intrigued by what makes themselves tick. We will seek to answer one important question – why, when we know we need to change, are we doing nothing? The answer is fascinating: we're not aware that we're doing nothing! Climate Psychology for Dummies will take an inspirational journey into the human unconscious, using social experiments to reveal how environmental threat elicits self-destructive behaviours, and how our disconnection from nature is exacerbating climate change. Our unique nature-documentary style will give us a unique opportunity to see the human species objectively, warts and all(!) and the changes we need to make to move toward environmental recovery.
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Name:Annika GustafsonCompany:Bedouin Viking ProductionsPlace:Nationality:SwedishProject:$H*T! / M*RDE!Genre:Human Interest, Culture, Environment & ScienceText:
‘’I never thought I’d be in the shit business,’’ says Bob, Texas multi-milionaire and ex-oil man. And he’s not the only one. An architect and his wife who’ve invested everything in their controversial idea, a prophet high school teacher from the Swedish archipelago, and a self-made urban planner from the grimiest slums of Kenya are just some of the visionaries who’ve discovered that dangerous and disgusting human waste can be a virtually limitless supply of energy and fertilizer when safely treated. As the world’s energy crisis and overpopulation problems accelerate, $H*T! inspires laughter and outrage at the same time, as it gets to the bottom of a natural bodily function that everybody does, but nobody talks about.
Team member:Phil Jandaly -
Name:Gustav HoferCompany:Hiq ProductionsPlace:Rome, ItalyNationality:ItalianProject:Italy: Love it, or leave itGenre:Culture, history, human interestText:
Luca and Gustav are a couple of Italians in their thirties who have witnessed a recent exodus of their friends to Berlin, Barcelona, New Zealand. Creative young people have been leaving in droves, frustrated by the politics, the lack of good jobs, the high cost of living and what seems like reactionary thinking. Gustav thinks of doing the same but Luca wants him to stay. But why should they stay after all? To find out, they start a trip through their country, in an old FIAT 500.
Team member:Luca Ragazzi -
Name:Wolfgang NiedermairCompany:KreativkraftPlace:Graz, AustriaNationality:AustrianProject:Adored AssassinGenre:Psychological Thriller, Human InterestText:
"ADORED ASSASSIN" is the true story of a convicted murderer who - through manipulation of the right people and clever re-invention of himself as a celebrated artist - facilitates his own release from prison. Once freed, he develops a double life, becoming not only a ladies' man and star writer, but also an international serial killer with victims in the USA and Europe.
Team member:Klaus T. Steindl -
Name:Jaron PaziCompany:Place:Munich, GermanyNationality:GermanProject:The Class of 39Genre:HistoryText:
1935 - About 44.000 school-aged Jewish children live in Germany. After two years of daily harassment and constant discrimination, those children are virtually barred from the school system and public life. A young and courageous woman decides to take upon the battle with the Nazi administration with the goal to open a place for those persecuted children, to provide them with protection, vitally important education and self-confidence. Against all odds she and her husband, a respected notary, find a loophole in German law and open up a Jewish school amidst the backdrop of Nazi Berlin – a soul-saving project. An institution that actually should not have existed…
The Class of 39 weaves together the daily life episodes of Jewish school children and the story of an extraordinary educational institution. By using original and unseen footage of the school and the protagonists, the documentary offers a rare inside glimpse into the world of Jewish schoolchildren in Nazi Berlin. At the same time it tells a dramatic and moving story of courage and determination on the eve of the Holocaust. The personalised narration offers a powerfully different angle to “classic Holocaust story telling”.Team member:Emanuel Rotstein -
Name:Susann ReckCompany:telekult Film- und MedienproduktionPlace:, GermanyNationality:GermanProject:Nations, Get Dolled Up!Genre:Text:
Why is Japanese pop-culture going that strong all over the world? This question will conduct the film. Like an allegory of the globalized world, it is described as fluent and nomadic and is said to be of healing impact: Japanese spirituality can be newly perceptible by being mixed up with the virtual world of the media. Sushi, Sailor Moon and Zen seem to reflect the Zeitgeist in an outstanding manner.
Team member:Heike Kunze -
Name:Piers SandersonCompany:Quark FilmsPlace:London, United KingdomNationality:BritishProject:The Dark Heart of Internet ScamsGenre:Detective, Crime, Technology & Creative DocumentaryText:
Look in your inbox or junk mail folder and more than likely you’ve got an email offering to share a large inheritance with you. Perhaps you’ve been told you have won the lottery, but you haven’t even bought a ticket. You know that these are scams, right? So why are millions of these emails still sent out each day? With the help of scam victims, private detectives and Internet vigilantes Piers will try to learn through these characters why we still fall for these crimes and who is behind them? These mails are the tip of a fraudulent iceberg that director Piers Sanderson will attempt to uncover in a journey from his inbox to the email scammers’ worlds of violence, corruption and murder. In chasing down the trail of a seemingly simple Internet fraud, he will explore the human desire to live and prosper and try to define where survival ends and greed begins. If we were born in different circumstances would we still live by the same set of moral values?
Team member:Anna Higgs -
Name:Magdalena SzymkowCompany:Vezfilm LimitedPlace:Nationality:PolishProject:You have to be thereGenre:Biographical, Culture, Human interestText:
You have to be there explores the life of Ryszard Kapuzynski, an icon of modern journalism, a Polish foreign correspondent from the Cold-War period, who escaped four death sentences in various corners of the world and wrote a dozen world-acclaimed books.The film embarks upon a fascinating journey in his footsteps. It uncovers the countries where he worked, places he explored, people he described. It is told through unpublished recordings and archival materials, trough voices of the reporter himself and others journalists, politics, writers and filmmakers such as Salman Rushdie, Lech Walesa, Werner Herzog and Andrzej Wajda
Team member:Francesco Ragazzi -
Name:Volker UllrichCompany:FilmkantinePlace:Berlin, GermanyNationality:GermanProject:Who owns the World?Genre:Creative and Investigative DocumentaryText:
Did you know that you can patent colors, numbers, plants and animals and that 20 % of your genes are patented and owned by private corporations?This film is about how intellectual property has become a mega-business. It tells the story of ancient healing plants, yoga postures and human cells – and of the people who claim to own them: It‘s a story of African tribes vs. pharma giants, Indian Yogis vs. smart businessmen, savvy patent attorneys vs. vigilant human rights activists.
Team member:Hannah Prinzler -
Name:Remy VlekCompany:Place:Amsterdam, The NetherlandsNationality:DutchProject:Wandering SoulsGenre:Social BiographyText:
Vietnam is in disarray: instead of a promised socialistic paradise it became a chaotic, unmanaged free market system. The generational conflict of post-war Vietnam fascinates me, because Vietnam developed into an all together different society than the one that was fought for. I show this by traveling with 3 Vietnamese along the HCM trail, a symbol of the war, where many soldiers and volunteers perished at a very young age. I also film people of the war generation as well as the younger generation in the city of Hanoi, that symbolizes the fast and confusing changes of the Vietnam of today.
