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"

The premiere of Mareike Wegener's film ECHO took place in Cologne's Filmhaus in attendance of many cast and crew members.

The film tells the story of Detective Harder (Valery Tscheplanowa) who takes on her first case after surviving a bomb attack during a police mission in Afghanistan. The remains of a girl are discovered in a moor near the small German town of Friedland. But Harder's investigation falters from the outset - not least due to the discovery of a live bomb dating to the Second World War, which throws the Friedlanders and Harder herself into turmoil.

The film is a probe into the collateral damage of wars of the distant and not so distant past, focusing on collective and individual forms of grief, loss, trauma and guilt.

"One of the most remarkable films in this year's Perspektive." (taz)

ECHO is a PETROLIO FILM production in co-production with WDR and with the support of Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, Film und Medienstiftung NRW, Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien and Deutscher Filmförderfonds.

To mark the 25th anniversary of LA LUCARNE, ARTE broadcasts eight creative auteur films on three Monday nights in November. On November 14 Hannes Lang's RIAFN will be presented. The documentary musical will also be available in ARTE's online library as a free stream.

RIAFN is an expedition to an earthly paradise, to real landscapes of unreal beauty, to idyllic places in the European Alps. Shepherds, dairymen and mountain farmers live far away from the hustle and bustle of the cities in close community with their cows, sheep, goats and dogs. Their daily routine is adapted to the needs of the livestock and their language has also been shaped by this community for centuries. RIAFN creates a melodic, sonorous and almost orchestrated acoustic space from the montage of dialects, cow calls, lure calls, songs and sonorous commands of the cattle farmers and shepherds.

Hannes Lang's documentary musical has been selected by numerous festivals, including Visions du Réel (2019), the Trento Film Festival (2019), and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2019).

The short film was made with the support of the IDM Südtirol, the Film und Medienstiftung NRW, the Office for Culture of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, the BKM and the Ministry of Culture and Science NRW and was produced by Petrolio in co-production with ZDF in collaboration with ARTE.

Each year, 18 producers from Europe and an additional guest country are selected to participate in various workshops during the Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival and the Berlinale.

The main goal of the program is to connect talented European producers with other filmmakers. The program also aims to provide participants with easy access and a deep and comprehensive orientation to the film market and to support European co-productions.

The program includes training, lectures, screenings, case studies and presentations to film professionals and the press at the Ji.hlava IDFF. The Emerging Producers project is accompanied by an elaborately designed catalog.

This is Mareike Wegener's Emerging Producers profile.

Carmen Losmann's documentary OECONOMIA won two Grimme Awards in the category „Information and Culture“. One award goes to writer and director Carmen Losmann, the other to cinematographer Dirk Lütter. They already won two Grimme Awards for their previous collaboration WORK HARD PLAY HARD in 2014.

The Grimme Award was established by the Grimme Institute in 1964 and is today’s most prestigious German television award. The ceremony took place on August 26th in Marl.

OECONOMIA was previously awarded the Gerd-Ruge-Grant and won the TESTIMONIES competition at Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival. The production was supported by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, BKM, and DFFF. The film was completed in 2020 and invited to the Forum of the 70th Berlinale.