Manga Bell

by Antonia Gronau | Feb 17, 2023

Manga Bell – A good German

Cameroon, 1914: The head of the Duala, King Rudolf Duala Manga Bell, is on trial. The charge is high treason. The accusation is made in connection with the German colonial administration’s expropriation plans, which were driven forward by one man in particular: District Commissioner Hermann Röhm.

Duala Manga attended grammar school in Ulm with the very same Hermann Röhm around 20 years earlier. In the course of the Court Room drama, Rudolf Duala Manga Bell emerges as a perfect example of the “cultural uplift” that the German colonizers ostensibly had in mind when they subjugated the “protectorates”. However, his perfect German, his comprehensive knowledge of German customs and the German legal system and, last but not least, his outstanding intellect meant that he was by no means safe, but was targeted by the colonial administration and its representative Röhm. Against the historical backdrop, the painful story of this friendship, which ends in fatal betrayal through the process of unfriending, forms a metaphor for German behavior as a colonial power.

The story of Rudolf Duala Manga Bell, who loved German culture and whose persistent belief in justice ended in a German judicial murder, is still little known. It is time to tell the story of this special man.

Credits

Screenplay & Director: Lisa Charlotte Friederich
Producer: Philipp Goeser
Production Company: Schiwago Film (Martin Lehwald, Marcos Kantis)

In cooperation with: SWR
Funded by: the German Federal Film Board (FFA)

Production year: 2026

Rukis erster Sommer

by Antonia Gronau | Feb 17, 2023

Rukis first summer

9-year-old Sarah spends the summer holidays alone with her dad in Tunisia for the first time and rescues a chicken from the oven. Together they have an adventure in the desert and in the middle of an impenetrable sandstorm Sarah begins to see clearly for the first time.

Credits

Director: Frédérique Veith
Written by: Zazou Röver
Producer: Philipp Goeser
Producer: Schiwago Film (Martin Lehwald, Marcos Kantis)
Fundings: Kuratorium junger deutscher Film und Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM)

Inside

by schiwagofilmadmin | Feb 17, 2023

Inside

“Inside” tells the story of Nemo an art thief who enters a collector’s penthouse apartment hunting for valuable works of art. As he enters, the security system locks everything down. And then malfunctions. He is locked inside. At Sirst, he expects his partners in crime to arrive, then the security guards or the police. Or the owner. But no one comes. Then he hopes and prays for a cleaning lady to come. A servant. Someone to clean the aquarium. Anyone. But no one comes. And days stretch out into months. He is locked inside a prison adorned with exquisite, strange, even eerie works of art: works that he both covets and admires, but which are now, for him, useless. Instead he must use all of his cunning and invention to survive. To break into all the locked spaces to Sind all the food and liquid he will need. The luxury penthouse – this locus of perfection and aspiration – has become a prison. A desert island. A torture chamber. And then a place of revelation.

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Credits

Cast: Willem Dafoe, Gene Bervoets, Eliza Stuyck

Written by: Ben Hopkins
Director: Vasilis Katsoupis
Director of Photography: Steven Annis
Production Design: Thorsten Sabel
Art Curator: Leonardo Bigazzi
Editor: Lambis Haralambidis
Composer: Frederik van de Moortel
Producer: Giorgos Karnavas (Heretic), Marcos Kantis (Schiwago Film), Dries Phlypo (A Private View)

Festival Participations

Hellenic Film Academy Awards 2024
23rd Columbus Film Critics Association Awards
30th Palić European Film Festival
27th Sofia International Film Festival
Reims Polar – International Thriller Film Festival 2023
73rd Berlin International Film Festival

Awards

Hellenic Film Academy Awards 2024:
Best First Film Director – Vasilis Katsoupis; Best Actor – Willem Dafoe
27th Sofia International Film Festival:
Best Director – International Competition (Vasilis Katsoupis)
30th Palić European Film Festival:
Special Mention – International Competition (Vasilis Katsoupis)

Styx

by schiwagofilmadmin | Feb 13, 2023

3

Styx

Rike – a doctor from Europe, 40 years old – embodies a Western idea of happiness and success. She is educated, self-confident, determined and dedicated. Rike makes her daily living as an emergency doctor in Cologne before she starts her vacation in Gibraltar. There she sets sail alone with her sailboat. The destination of her journey is the Atlantic island Ascension Island. Her vacation comes to an abrupt end when she finds herself in the immediate vicinity of an overloaded, wrecked fishing boat after a storm at sea. Several dozen people are in danger of drowning. Rike first follows the usual rescue chain and requests assistance by radio. When her pleas for help go unanswered, time is running out, and a third-party rescue proves unlikely, Rike is forced to act.

Credits

Cast: Susanne Wolff, Gedion Odour Wekesa
Screenplay: Wolfgang Fischer, Ika Kuenzel
Director: Wolfgang Fischer
Camera: Benedict Neuenfels
Composer: Dirk von Lowtzwow
Editing: Monika Willi
Production design: Wolfgang Fischer, Benedict Neuenfels, Ina Kuenzel, Volker Rehm
Costume: Nicole Fischnaller
Make up: Elke Hahn
Sound: Andreas Turnwald
Production Management: Dirk Seibert
Line Producer: Charles E. Breitkreuz
Co-producer: Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu, Bady Minck
Producer: Marcos Kantis, Martin Lehwald, Michal Pokorny
Editors: Andrea Hanke (WDR), Georg Steinert (Arte)
Broadcaster: WDR, Arte
Sponsor: Film- und Medienstiftung NRW
Eurimages
Austrian Film Institute
Malta Film Commission
German Film and Television Fund
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
German Federal Film Board (FFA)
Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM)

Festivalteilnahmen

68th Berlin International Film Festival (Section: Panorama Special)
29th Emden-Norderney Film Festival
28th Film Art Festival Mecklenburg Western Pomerania
14th Festival of German Film Ludwigshafen am Rhein
53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
29th Ankara International Film Festival
37th Istanbul Film Festival
Odessa Film Festival
42nd Hong Kong International Film Festival
21st Shangai International Film & TV Festival
4th Valetta Film Festival
18th New Horizons Film Festival
Galway Film Fleadh
Jerusalem Film Festival

Preise

Bavarian Film Award:

Best image design

Berlinale:

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
2nd place Panorama Audience Award
Label Europe Cinemas (initiative for the promotion of European cinema)
Heiner Carow Prize of the DEFA Foundation

German Film Award:

Silver LOLA for Best Feature Film
Best female lead
Best image design
Best sound design

German Human Rights Film Award:

Best feature film

Emden-Norderney Film Festival:

Creative Energy Award for outstanding individual achievements: Susanne Wolff (Acting) and Benedict Neuenfels (Cinematography)
Island scholarship “A desk by the sea” for director Wolfgang Fischer

Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg Vorpommern:

Main prize “Flying Ox
Audience Award
Award for best music and sound design

Austrian Film Award:

Best direction
Best Screenplay
Best cut

Desaster

by schiwagofilmadmin | Feb 13, 2023

Desaster

After the surprise success of “Bis zum Ellenbogen”, the new, pitch-black gangster comedy by and with Justus von Dohnányi, Jan Josef Liefers, Stefan Kurt, Anna Loos and Milan Peschel.

The two professional killers Ed and Mace get the order from the corrupt lawyer Dr. Würsch to rob gunrunner Mischa in his villa in St. Tropez. A plan that other petty criminals also forge, and so begins an absurd chase for big money, in which people die for all they’re worth without a single shot being fired.

Credits

Cast: Justus von Dohnányi, Jan Josef Liefers, Stefan Kurt, Anna Loos, Milan Peschel, Max Simonischek, Angela Winkler, Oskar Ortega Sanches

Screenplay: Justus von Dohnányi
Director: Justus von Dohnányi
Camera: Ralf Noack
Editing: Olivia Retzer
Production design: Johannes Fischer
Props: Maxi von Dohnányi
Costume: Katrin Aschendorf
Mask: Peter Bour
Sound: Claudia Mattai del Moro
Production Management: Jonas Witsch
Co-producer: Ellenbogen Film, Radio Doria Entertainment, STUDIOCANAL
Producer: Martin Lehwald, Marcos Kantis, Michal Pokorny
Commissioning Editor: Hessischer Rundfunk, Jörg Himstedt
Broadcaster: HR, arte
Funding: German Federal Film Board, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein
Production year: 2015