Hannes Lang’s new documentary short THE CLOUD FACTORY celebrates its world premiere in the International Short Film Competition at the Cork International Film Festival. Taking place this November for the 70th time, the festival is not only Ireland’s largest but also its oldest film festival. Winners of the short film competitions automatically qualify for Academy Award® consideration. The screening is scheduled for November 11th.

THE CLOUD FACTORY is a cinematic exploration of the skies above the Rhineland lignite mining district, where air masses enriched with emissions rise into the atmosphere and alter the climate. The film reflects on what these human-made clouds may reveal about our future – and whether visions of another, livable world can still take shape within this artificial atmosphere.

The film features interview excerpts with Uschi Quirini, Katja Kaufmann, Detlef Wingrich, Frank Meller, Fabio Quirini, and Anika Friedrichsmeier, who share insights and perspectives on life in the shadow of THE CLOUD FACTORY, probing the fragile balance between identification, belonging, and threat.

THE CLOUD FACTORY was produced in co-production with ARTE’s La Lucarne, editorially supervised by Kathrin Brinkmann. Hannes Lang directed and co-wrote the film together with Mareike Wegener. The compact shooting team included Felix Rier (cinematography) and Peter Rösner (sound), who also designed the sound together with Isabel Cope. Hannes Lang edited the film, Tobias Wiedmer was responsible for the color grading, and Katrin Gruber designed the titles. Caspar Newbolt (Version Industries) created the poster, and David Gruschka conceived and produced the trailer.

The film was funded by IDM South Tyrol, the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), the Department of Culture and Media Bolzano, and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Sabine Panossian has been nominated for a special Grimme Award in the Fiction category for her outstanding cinematography in our film ECHO. Sabine Panossian studied at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF and has since worked in both fiction and documentary filmmaking. Her short film Am Ende der Wald won the Silver Student Academy Award in 2016. Her graduation film Off Season was invited to the Berlinale in 2019 and was honored with the Michael Ballhaus Award for Sabine's cinematography, among others.

The Grimme Award is the most prestigious accolade for television content in Germany and has been presented by the Grimme Institute in Marl since 1964. The winners of the 61st edition will be announced on March 6. An overview of all nominations can be found here.

ECHO is a film by Mareike Wegener, co-produced with WDR (commissioning editor: Andrea Hanke), where it premiered in March 2024.

The Cinématèque Leipzig presents films in its "Tatorte" series that explore the crime genre in diverse and unique ways. Some of these films may feel familiar, while others challenge the audience’s viewing habits. The selection includes crime stories that inspire reflection or wonder, spark discussions, provoke laughter, or perhaps even lull one to sleep. Films that can be soothingly dull or thrillingly entertaining – but in any case, remarkably good in their own distinctive way.

Mareike Wegener's debut feature film ECHO, which plays with elements of the crime genre to explore themes of history, haunting, and repetition, will be screened on Sunday, January 5, at 8:15 PM at the Cinématèque Leipzig.

For Museum Night on November 2, MOOZ will present a short film program in the new spaces of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. MOOZ is essentially a virtual space for artistic works featuring moving images from the Academy and, as an anagram of ZOOM, it focuses on experimental audiovisual formats. The program includes Mareike Wegener's first short film "Haarteile" (2005, 7min, 16mm, b/w).

Under the title talk talk, MOOZ will showcase artistic works for Museum Night that vary in approach—documentary, experimental, performative, or installation-based. Each piece communicates in a distinct, intense, and personal language, drawing attention to diverse forms of communication.

"Haarteile" was created in the seminar "Documentary Miniatures" under Dietrich Leder, with the assignment of documenting a repetitive action. During the seminar, Mareike Wegener watched "Oskar Langenfeld. 12 Mal" (1966) by Holger Meins, which had a profound impact on her both thematically and formally, influencing the fragmentary structure of "Haarteile". The film is an intergenerational study of hair rituals among women, where biographical patterns seem to repeat themselves. By observing three women of different ages engaging in their hair rituals, one discovers more commonalities than differences: young-middle-aged-elderly, morning-noon-evening, styling-dyeing-hairpieces.

During the summer break, the KINDL invites visitors to an open-air film programme exploring the topic of fragility both artistically and thematically. The curated selection, titled States of Fragility, features seven short films by contemporary international artists and directors. Our film RIAFN will screen alongside works by Factory of Found Clothes (FFC), Eva Giolo, Sky Hopinka, Yeo Siew Hua, Pauline Curnier Jardin, and Alice Rohrwacher & JR. These films explore themes of transformation and change, the natural cycle of life and death, and the rituals in between. They engage with myths, ancestors, and traditional beliefs, portraying a vulnerable world and the fragility of ecosystems. Some films reference actual events and build narratives around them, while others unfold through montages of images and the creation of atmospheres. The overarching theme of fragility and its far-reaching facets connects all the films.

Wednesday, August 21st, 8 pm at KINDL - Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin. With an introduction by curator Katherina Perlongo. Free admission.

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.