mindjazz pictures

A documentary about the underground singer-songwriter Tobias Gruben, his upbringing and his musical career, featuring past live perfomances by himself and cover versions of his songs by contemporary artists.

Documentary about German soccer manager Rudi Assauer, who'd shaped an era at Schalke 04 Football Club by achieving athletic success as well as saving the license to compete in the Bundesliga in economically difficult times.

Documentary about the song “You'll Never Walk Alone,” the most famous sports anthem of the world.

These days, employees find themselves under enormous pressure. Disorders such as burn-out and depression are not uncommon. A manager, a mediation coach and a quantum physicist offer their approaches to counteract this trend.

Jan Gerdes is a third-generation dairy farmer, but he struggles with his conscience when the milk yield decreases and he has to sell his cows to the slaughterhouse. After suffering a burn-out, he decides to give up his farm. On the day his last cows are due to be transported to the slaughterhouse, he finds that there's no room for twelve of the cows. Instead of ordering another transport, he and his partner Karin Mück decide to keep them. This is the birth of 'Hof Butenland' - the first cow retirement home in Germany.

He went on a bender with Motörhead’s Lemmy and spend some night in jail. He was a street musician, a working class hero, a thug, a fairy and most of all a rebel – Jürgen Zeltinger is a Cologne icon. With his band he covered Lou Reed and the Ramones in the Kölsch dialect in the 80s, and his social justice anthems against the rich and powerful and for the little man are being bellowed by rowdy crowds to this day. Documentary filmmaker Oliver Schwabe accompanies the now elder statesman of Rock on tour, digs up old live footage and interviews friends and colleagues like musician Wolfgang Niedecken and actor Heiner Lauterbach. So emerges the fascinating story of the stout, bald street kid with the short fuse who would go on to influence a whole generation.

In his documentary, filmmaker Daniel Hofmann deals with the history of German thrash metal. He reports on the fans, bands and organizers and offers an insight into the scene.

A portrait of Tanja Nijmeijer, a Dutch woman who joins the FARC rebels after an internship at a school in Colombia.

Approximately 4 million people in Germany have a brother or sister who is chronically ill or disabled. They have to deal with issues such as responsibility, renunciation and loss much earlier than their peers. Their reality is fundamentally different from that of other children and adolescents. Quietly observing and with great respect for all family members, the film approaches the different life realities of such siblings and depicts their everyday lives.

BEEWILDERED COMPANIONS is an immersive ethnographic study on the socio-material entanglements of humans and honeybees in times of globalized diseases. Triggered by the migration of a small bee parasite from Asia, the culture of beekeeping in Europe today is deeply shaken. The search for new and better practices is also a struggle of different imaginaries regarding the ontological status of the honeybee as domestic or wild. Can and should a serious disease be controlled by medication or breeding? Or is it better for humans to give up control, as in the long lost craft of tree beekeeping? Only in the deep forests of Bashkiria the tradition is still alive. The cultural appropriation of this knowledge in Central Europe could be an important pillar for a sustainable solution to the crisis. Three multisensory-observational and three plurivocal-discursive chapters juxtapose the diverging inner attitudes with the corresponding practices of animal care.

This documentary follows five pupils with and without a heightened need of care in an elementary school for more than two years. They are part of the first generation in Germany with a lawful right to be taught in a public school regardless if they are disabled or otherwise challenged. The documentary focuses on the ideal and the practical implementation of the law of inclusion in elementary schools in Germany.

L'Chaim! is an intimate portrait of a man with a rare and significant story. It is the tale of Chaim Lubelski. He gave up a career as a chess player and successful businessman in New York to dedicate himself to his elderly mother, a Holocaust survivor.