Documentary
JANITOU
Creative Documentary /
In Development /
Director: Amine Hattou /
Producers: Costanza Julia Bani, Fabian Martin Diering /
Production Companies: Molly Aida Film GmbH (Germany) /
Development funded by: AFAC (Arab Culture Fund), Institut Français und Doha Film Institute /
In the 70ies and 80ies a Bollywood Film that flopped in India, succeeded to create a small cultural revolution in Algeria: “Janitou”. For the first time millions of Algerians, both men and women, gathered together and watched this exotic film that melted their hearts. The film became an overnight sensation. After the end of the Soviet affine social People’s Republic, the land suffered from a civil war and brutal terrorism, succumbing to a dark decade.
The documentary accompanies the collective memory of a nation and the personal journey of the director, a young Algerian man, breaking a societal taboo: to talk openly about love and restrain in … Read More »
Concrete Empire
Creative Documentary /
In Development /
Director: Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher /
Producers: Costanza Julia Bani, Fabian Martin Diering and Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher /
Production Companies: Molly Aida Film GmbH (Germany) and Supernormals (USA) /
Concrete Empire website
From 1967 to 1986 Albania built 750,000 bunkers for a war that would never happen. With a population of only 3,5 million, the bunkers totalled one for every four citizens. The construction of these concrete domes – ordered by the dictator Enver Hoxha -, led to years of seclusion, economic crisis, and corruption.
“Concrete Empire” is a feature length documentary that explores the history of the Albanian people; their trials, tribulations and triumphs during and after communist rule.
The film poses many questions: How is a community shaped by the extreme paranoia of a single person and its resulting isolation? How do individuals live through extreme hardship? How does a nation redefine … Read More »
The Forgotten Army
Creative Documentary /
Theatrical Release: March 2017 /
Director: Signe Astrup /
Producers: Costanza Julia Bani, Fabian Martin Diering and Signe Astrup /
Production Companies: Molly Aida Film GmbH and Sineast Filmproduktion (Germany) /
Funded through: BKM / DFFF /
Co-produced by: Bayerischer Rundfunk, Cine+ (Germany) and DR-K (Denmark) /
Licensed by: UR (Sweden) /
Distribution: Salzgeber Medien (Germany), Illumina Films (World Sales – The Netherlands
Forgotten Army Website
“The Forgotten Army” tells the story of former GDR (German Democratic Republic) soldiers, who after the Berlin Wall fell, haven’t come to terms with their past. Divided between radicals and legalists they are unable to find a real new identity in re-unified Germany. Since 1989 more than 250,000 border guards, high officers of the National People’s Army and Stasi officers not only lost their jobs, but also their homeland and their identities. They all did what they were told to do, … Read More »
A Stranger in my own Country
Documentary /
In Development /
Director: Sven Stäglich /
Producers: Costanza Julia Bani and Fabian Martin Diering /
Production Company: Molly Aida Film GmbH /
The Loniest Grave on Earth
Documentary /
In Development /
Director: Jürgen Vogt /
Producers: Costanza Julia Bani and Fabian Diering /
Production Company: Molly Aida Film GmbH /
Greenland happens to host the loneliest grave on earth: it is Nazi Lieutenant Zacher’s burial spot. The smallest battle of World War Second took place in this desert of ice on the largest battlefield of the world – fought between the Germans and the Danish. The reason to fight was to build up weather stations and the reason for a new archeological expedition today is to look for their importance.
Käthe Kollwitz – Witness of her Times and Interpreter of the Future
Documentary /
In Development /
Director: Nina Mair /
Producers: Costanza Julia Bani and Fabian Martin Diering /
Production: Molly Aida Film GmbH for MDR: Lebensläufe /
Protected: Mirny Mining Town – Living on the Abyss – Intern
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Mirny Mining Town – Living on the Abyss
Fiction Feature /
In Development /
Director: Saverio Pesapane /
Producers: Costanza Julia Bani, Fabian Martin Diering, Giovanni Pompili and Vlad Ketkovich /
Production Companies: Molly Aida Film GmbH (Germany), Kino Produzioni (Italy) and Ethnofund (Russia) /
Development funded through: Goethe Institute Moscow, AG DOK and DRA e.V. (Deutsch-Russischer Austausch e.V.) /
Nominated for: Biennale College Filmfestival Venice 2016 /
Boris, a Yakut/Russian around 20, wants to go to the „continent“ – as they call the rest of Russia in Siberia – and leave his hometown behind: Mirny, a former Soviet mono-city built on permafrost and diamond mine on the border of the biggest excavated hole in the world. Forced to save someone dear in the taiga, he has to confront himself with the old shaman and hunting traditions he has lost sight of and might change his mind.
The Great Escape
TV Documentary /
MDR/arte /
director: Thomas Ammann /
creative and executive producer: Costanza Julia Bani /
commissioning editor: W. König /
production company: Prounen Film /
Six young Jews from the ghetto in Budapest, attending the same school, left their hometown at the beginning of the 20th century. they all fled from dictarorship into exil and all of them became great personalities in their field of action. Endre Ernö Friedmann, aka Robert Capa became the most famous war photographer world wide; Mihaly Kertesz Kaminer, aka Michael Curtiz directed inter alia “Casablanca”, the most seen propaganda movie of all times, the phisicians Leó Szilárd and Edward Teller, were both part of the Manhattan Projekt and the mathematician Margittai Neumann János, aka John von Neumann, became the father of informatics.
Constructing Sochi
TV Documentary /
WDR /
director: Steffi Wurster /
creative producer: Costanza Julia Bani /
executive producer: Jakob Rühle /
commissioning editor: B. Schmitz /
production company: Sinafilm /
The winter Olympics 2014 changed completely a subtropical summer vacation place at the Black Sea: Sochi. Territories got occupied and the landscape was artificially transformed in a playground. In this long term documentary Steffi Wurster observes the drastic change of the bay, where new land is forced to become home of ice stadiums, hotels and new beaches. A paradox erasing the presence of other human beings, who used to live on the same ground before the construction plan was set through: people like Pascha, Lena, Ludmilla and Volodja. They lose their homes, their vegetable gardens and their jobs in the name of new apartments, presumed to be more comfortable.