ma.ja.de. FilmProduktions

An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone. Victor Kossakovsky raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?

The main character of the documentary is a 16-year-old Kurdish girl who, after the tragic death of her mother on the Polish-Belarusian border, has to become a mother to her 4 younger brothers.

The third part of Thomas Heise's time-lapse observation, in which he accompanies the people of Saxony-Anhalt. At the centre of the film is Jeanette, who grew up with four brothers and became pregnant at 15. In the meantime, however, she fulfilled her dream and became a bus driver. Her eldest son Tommy is a troubled child, while the younger Paul is doing well at school and the family has high hopes for him. Heise interacts with her family with openness and caution, without shaming anyone. What emerges is a work about the changing story of a place and the people who live there.

Amany Al-Ali stands out as one of Syria's few female cartoonists, residing in her father's home in Idlib, the last city unconquered by Assad's forces. Like her remaining neighbours she's submitted to relentless Russian airstrikes and caught between advancing troops and extremist groups. Despite acclaim for her art, she faces threats, condemnation, and degradation, causing her to contemplate leaving. Ironically, her artwork has graced galleries in France and Italy but never received exposure within Syria's borders. The film captures her endeavor to organize her inaugural exhibition in Idlib. This experience compels her to confront the harsh realities of a city defined by bombings and male interference. While organizing drawing lessons for women and girls, comforting her young niece, and sharing her story with the documentary crew, Amany's outlook on the future gradually erodes.

25 years ago, Louis Sarno, an American, heard a song on the radio and followed its melody into the Central Africa Jungle and stayed. He than recorded over 1000 hours of original BaAka music. Now he is part of the BaAka community and raises his pygmy son, Samedi. Fulfilling an old promise, Louis takes Samedi to America. On this journey Louis realizes he is not part of this globalized world anymore but globalization has also arrived in the rainforest. The BaAka depend on Louis for their survival. Father and son return to the melodies of the jungle but the question remains: How much longer will the songs of the forest be heard?

Art, politics and motorcycles - on the occasion of his 90th birthday John Berger or the Art of Looking is an intimate portrait of the writer and art critic whose ground-breaking work on seeing has shaped our understanding of the concept for over five decades. The film explores how paintings become narratives and stories turn into images, and rarely does anybody demonstrate this as poignantly as Berger.

An exploration into the motives and histories of individuals, including herself, who have exited the world of violent extremism.

Making film wears down director Lars von Trier, but he is not able to live without them. In the documentary film this Danish auteur’s all-consuming love affection for film is portrayed. Now he is standing at a cross-road. While film as we know it is dying.

A prismatic meditation on pollution in the capital of the World’s biggest free-market democracy and the most polluted and populated city, Delhi – a film about the pollution inside of the human mind.

Off the coast of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal is a tiny 'brothel island' populated by women forced to sell their bodies to men who arrive by the boatload. Each of the women came to inhabit the 100m long and 10m wide piece of land for different reasons, whether through a sister, the need for money, or in search of love and affection, but for all of them it is a life tougher than they could have imagined. Deepening their troubles is the island's existence at the frontline of climate change, and with the increase of cyclones, floods and soil erosion the prospect of losing their homes, and the island itself, is closer than ever. Beautifully shot and subverting expectation, Bad Weather is a documentary that carves out a message of hope in extreme adversity.

"Pictures from the late eighties in the GDR on up to the immediate present in the year 2008 in Germany. What has been left over besieges my mind. All these pictures keep reassembling themselves to make up something which they were originally not made for. They are still in motion. They are becoming history." (Thomas Heise)

A luxury hotel in a conflict zone. Development aid worker Dorothea begins an affair with a young drifter, Alec, but what starts as sweet distraction brings her dangerously close to losing control.

Kos (13) is going through the most bizarre period in his life. His mother died a few years ago and his dad is having a heart attack. While Kos’ father is in the hospital, it looks like the hotel he is running will be a big mess. But Kos and his three sisters do not intend to let that happen. After the siblings find out that father is deep in financial problems, the hotel is threatened with closure. The children however come up with a solution: someone has to win the local beauty pageant, with a hefty cash prize attached.

A music-driven documentary about a deaf gypsy girl falling in love with Bollywood.

Croatia, 7th of January 1992: In the middle of the war, a young journalist's body is discovered dressed in the uniform of an international mercenary group. Twenty years later, his cousin Anja Kofmel investigates his story.

Nardos, an Azmari singer from Addis Ababa, dreams of telling stories about the lives of ordinary people through her music. In her search for the stories behind her songs, she meets Gennet, a poet who lives on the streets with her children. Nardos puts the lives, visions and power of Ethiopian women at the center of her creation as we slowly immerse ourselves in a rapidly changing country.

Winter. A bus stop in a small village. People are waiting for a bus. They talk. Listening to their conversations, the viewer can imagine the world they live in. United by the movement of the camera, the place and the people blend together.

Farmland - the new green gold. Hoping for export revenues, Ethiopia's government leases millions of hectares of farmland to foreign investors. But the dream of prosperity has a dark side where the World Bank plays a very questionable role... Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas investigates land grabbing and its impact on people's lives. Pursuing the truth, we meet investors, development bureaucrats, persecuted journalists, struggling environmentalists and evicted farmers deprived of their land.

Artist Victoria Lomasko explores the link between domestic and state-sponsored violence in midst of an impending crisis. Having fled Russia in 2022, she embarked on a mural project depicting events since the protest-filled winter of 2021.

Corvaz is a simple and instinctive 30-year-old that works hard in his father’s vineyard and loves going around with his dog Toni. The village life is all centered around the local bar and for the men, the days
go by drinking and kidding one another until one night, the statues that decorate the village square get vandalized. The blame goes on Corvaz. While the grudge from the community rises, a punishing expedition eventually forces Corvaz to face the villagers and leave. For the others, there may be no such an alternative. The code of “rispet” that has kept them all together is now broken.