Music, art, politics, and sex are the subjects of the 13 productions from seven countries. American Julian Schnabel, known as artist and director of feature films (DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY), created the ultimate homage to Lou Reed with his emotionally overwhelming concert film BERLIN. In GOGOL BORDELLO NON-STOP, Columbian director Margarita Jimeno follows the rise of gypsy punk band "Gogol Bordello", led by charismatic singer Eugene Hütz. In his fulminate British-US American documentary JOY DIVISION, Grant Gee manages to have the surviving ex-band-members comment for the first time on the events of around 30 years ago: the fast rise of the cult band and the premature death of singer Ian Curtis.
Daniel Thouw from Germany’s ALTER EGO takes the viewer on a journey to metropolises in seven different countries and grants a look at the globally extremely productive graffiti scene. With GONZO: THE LIFE & WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON, US director Alex Gibney created an impressive film about the American cult author (FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS) of the same – and German Niko Apel presents an unusual portrait of an unusual woman in SONBOL, of Iranian rally driver and dentist Sonbol Fatemi.
In the Italian production SUDDENLY, LAST WINTER Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi offer a frightening insight into the homophobic thinking of their fellow countrymen, Eva Maschke shows two HIV positive gay men in Cologne and their coping with their illness in the German production ADRIFT (OHNE HALT).
Two films deal with the different aspects of today’s sex business: in the Swiss production LADY MERCEDES, David Fonjallaz, Simon Jäggi and Louis Mataré take a look at the problem of ageing prostitutes in the streets of Bern, and in the German documentary 9TO5 – DAYS IN PORN, Jens Hoffmann takes a glance behind the scenes of the American adult entertainment industry, straight into the porn epicentre in San Fernando Valley in sunny California.
In the German-Cuban co-production AGRIDULCE, director Julia Keller uses her protagonist’s partiality to kitschy colourful cream-cakes – the Cuban’s sweet status symbol – to look at their daily life. Australian director Tim Wise’s documentary SOLDIERS OF PEACE shows the effort of the UN peace-corps and many other engaged supporters, the interests of the war-profiteers, and the surprisingly huge progress on the road to peace on the agenda of world history.
Last but not least, Nicola Collins from Great Britain paints a portrait of her father and his friends, a gangster syndicate with rather dubious credentials from London’s East End in her enthralling documentary THE END.
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