On the last Sunday in June, we are presenting three of the eight DVDs we are releasing with Filmgalerie 451 as part of the Living Archive project.

A double DVD with two films by Philip Scheffner: THE HALFMOON FILES (2007) und DER TAG DES SPATZEN (2010) will be presented in an image-based discussion with the director and Nanna Heidenreich. A DVD featuring films by the West Berlin filmmaker Riki Kalbe who died in 2001 will be presented in the form of a slideshow. Finally, a DVD with classics of Sheila McLaughlin's queer cinema (1978–87) will be presented and bonus material screened - a discussion between McLaughlin, Heinz Emigholz and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus. All 20 films will be shown in their entirety in July. (30.6.)

We are delighted to present Eva Heldmann's STEPPING OUT (FREMD GEHEN. GESPRÄCHE MIT MEINER FREUNDIN) on our VoD-channel at realeyz.tv.

Constantly on the look out for a bit of sex and fun, Eva Heldmanns friend Annette makes regular forays into the club world on American army bases in Frankfurt and the surrounding area. Annette’s candour, the provocative way this German academic discusses her sexual desires, as well as her penchant for on-camera exhibitionism whenever she happens to find herself beside a black GI, illuminates a side of female sensuality that is rarely portrayed. Annette’s alert and inquisitive erotic behaviour and her own ‘outrageous’ take on life doesn’t merely change our view of the male world at the barracks – it turns it upside down completely.

Peter Liechti's documentary FATHER'S GARDEN - THE LOVE OF MY PARENTS (VATERS GARTEN - DIE LIEBE MEINER ELTERN) has been awarded at the Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel in Nyon and at the Crossing Europe film festival in Linz. In Nyon the film received the Special Jury Award – SSA/Suissimage for the most innovative swiss feature or middle-length film out of all sections; in Linz it won the Award for European Documentaries given by the Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Closely knit yet poles apart: this is the ambivalent standpoint from which Peter Liechti turns his lens on his elderly parents and the story of their marriage. Alongside conversations that shift from slapstick to insanity and observations of daily life in his parents’ cramped, lower middle class apartment, a puppet theatre is also established as a second location. This forms the stage for scenes between mother and father to be reenacted by rabbit puppets; as a puppet, the son can also react in explosive fashion. Wild sound effects and music provide an additional level of commentary, generating disorder, disharmony, and distance. Drawing on specific biographies, this deeply personal film transcends the private to convey the tenor of life and sense of self of a generation from a bygone era: unsentimental yet full of empathy. (Birgit Kohler)