Mareike Wegener's film debut ECHO is currently streaming online at ARD Mediathek until June 3rd.

The film tells the story of the war-wounded chief inspector Harder (Valery Tscheplanowa), who survived a bomb attack as a police trainer in Afghanistan. Back in Germany, as a fresh start she is supposed to determine the identity of a bog body found in the moorland of a peaceful village. It's our first feature film production, co-produced with WDR. The production was supported by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, KJDF, BKM, and DFFF. After completion, the film premiered at the Berlinale 2022 and was distributed to cinemas by Grandfilm.

On the occasion of the TV premiere, Matthias Hannemann writes in the FAZ: 'With her debut, the author and director skillfully reminds us that while German society engages with guilt and crime through the pervasive presence of crime shows on television, it fails to delve deeply into the complexities of guilt. The omnipresent public memory stands in no relation to the silence that prevails when remembering becomes uncomfortable: at one's own doorstep, in one's own house."

At the end of the year, Hannes Lang began filming THE CLOUD FACTORY together with cinematographer Felix Rier. The short film is an experimental exploration of the Rhenish lignite mining region, which is currently home to 52 active power plant units and three of the ten highest-emission coal-fired power plants in Europe. However, the region is by no means a deserted, electricity-producing industrial area, but has been a densely populated habitat for centuries. At this location, THE CLOUD FACTORY takes the ephemeral phenomenon of the cloud as an opportunity to take a cinematic look at human hopes, castles in the air and visions of the future in the face of our present, which is strained by climate and energy crises.

THE CLOUD FACTORY is a PETROLIO production in co-production with ZDF / Arte and is being made there for the series "La Lucarne”. The production is supported by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), the IDM Südtirol and the Office for Film and Media of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol.

Caspar Newbolt’s / Version Industries’ poster for Mareike Wegener's film ECHO will be exhibited at the Berlin Kulturforum. The exhibition The Big Screen: Film Posters of All Time presents three hundred original film posters dating from the early 1900s to the 2020s, all chosen from the Graphic Design Collection at the Kunstbibliothek (Art Library), Kulturforum, with the help of international guests from the film world.

The selection includes classics as well as works by Isolde Baumgart, Helmut Brade, Dorothea Fischer-Nosbisch, Hans Hillmann and other outstanding poster designers. The chronological overview of film posters includes blockbusters as well as posters for art house and independent films spanning Neorealismo, New Hollywood, and work by Pedro Almodóvar. The Kunstbibliothek is a museum with an extensive and historic collection of graphic design works. The library previously showed exhibitions of film posters in its galleries in 1959 (for the 9th International Film Festival) and 1975 (for the 25th Film Festival). In 2024, The Big Screen will run in tandem with the 74th Film Festival next-door at neighbouring Potsdamer Platz.

A special exhibition by the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in collaboration with the Berlin International Film Festival and the Deutsche Kinemathek.

The poster can be purchased at Version Industries' webshop.

Mareike Wegener was awarded the Kompagnon Fellowship at this year's Berlinale for the further development of her new film PARAPHRASE ON THE FINDING OF A GLOVE.

The Kompagnon Fellowship has been awarded since 2017 to a new film project by an author and/or director from Berlinale Talents, and to a director from Perspektive Deutsches Kino, with the goal of sustainably supporting the work of directors and screenwriters living in Germany. The award comprises a 5,000 euro grant as well as a mentoring programme with on-the-job training for strengthening one’s personal signature and networking within the industry. Jurors Dela Dabulamanzi, Anne Fabini and Jöns Jönsson presented the awards.

"The film is about a woman seldom seen in the movies – lonely, but searching, she wanders between reality and fantasy. The forced isolation of the pandemic is a barely manageable challenge for Cloe. The young philologist has made a career out of summarizing her clients’ resumes for speeches – but soon, they’re all eulogies. When even her own mother declines to hug Cloe, and her dog nearly dies from an overdose of sleeping pills, a lost glove becomes a substitute for human interaction and opens up a world of fantastic adventures. With the certainty of a sleepwalker, the film becomes a magical-realism thriller. Mareike Wegener plays with the audience’s expectations - fortunately, since it creates ludicrous moments of confusion that arise from the deep psychological pain of loneliness. PARAPHRASE ON THE FINDING OF A GLOVE is awarded with the Kompagnon Fellowship 2023"