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.

Mareike Wegener’s film ECHO tells the story of Detective Harder, who takes on her first case after surviving a bomb attack during a police mission to Afghanistan. The remains of a girl are discovered in a moor near the ficticious 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.

Starring Valery Tscheplanowa, Ursula Werner, Andreas Döhler, Felix Römer, and Oskar Keymer.

ECHO is a Petrolio production in co-production with WDR and received support from Film and Media Fund NRW, Young German Film Committee, German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, and German Federal Film Fund. The German distributor is Grandfilm.

X is among the twelve films nominated for the German Short Film Award. The selection committee's statement reads:

"Two men in the heart of the Ruhr area: One has long since fulfilled his destiny, the other has still not found it. Like an X, their paths cross underground - both of them ready to give their soul. In her film, Mareike Wegener merges a wide variety of motifs and perspectives to create a fascinating play on myths. At the center are two protagonists whose real lives determine these motifs and actions. And so the miner tradition, Mephisto motif, blues myth and working class charm come together harmoniously to create a loving narrative between documentary and fiction, which not only nostalgically conjures up the spirits of the Ruhr region, but also adds a beautiful and disarmingly sympathetic variant to the diversity of cinematic narrative forms."

Mareike Wegener's film X is set to celebrate its world premiere at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. The 30-minute film is part of the German Competition and will screen on May 5 and 6 (online - due to the pandemic).

X is a cinematic ritual aimed at appeasing the ancestral spirits of the industrial workforce. The film is inspired by the lives of the filmmaker's father and grandfather, who also play the lead roles.

X was shot shortly before the outbreak of the pandemic in Bocholt, Duisburg, Witten, Recklinghausen and Gelsenkirchen, among other places. Writer and director Mareike Wegener was accompanied by Hannes Lang and Johannes Klais, who were responsible for the images and sound. Eckhard Wegener and Dieter Becker, among others, can be seen in front of the camera.

X was made with the support of the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and the BKM Short Film Fund.

Carmen Losmann’s new film OECONOMIA will be released in German cinemas on October 15th and in Austria on November 6th. After celebrating its world premiere in the Forum section of this year’s Berlinale, the documentary was invited to CPH:DOX and Sheffield Doc | Fest, where it screened in competition and received rave reviews.

OECONOMIA reveals the rules of capitalism by showing that paradoxically the economy only grows when we create debt, that profits are only possible when money is owed, that the debtor is in fact its key player. This zero-sum game places us and our entire world in the logic of an endlessly perpetual increase in capital – no matter how much the cost.

OECONOMIA is Petrolio’s second feature-length documentary production and it is distributed by NEUE VISIONEN. The film was awarded the Gerd-Ruge-Grant and co-produced by the German broadcaster 3sat. The production was supported by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, BKM and DFFF.
Please visit oeconomia-film.de for more information on the schedule and related events.