The shooting of Mareike Wegener’s new film is completed: ECHO tells the story of detective Harder, who survived a bomb attack while deployed on a police mission in Afghanistan. In order to reintegrate into her job as an investigator she is sent to find out the identity of a bog body found near a peaceful community called Friedland. But the towners have their own problems and hardly care about Harder’s inquiry, especially after a dud shot from WWII is found in von-Hüning’s moat and yet another explosion becomes probable.

The cinema-destined film, which will be distributed by grandfilm, was shot in and around Cologne. Writer and director Mareike Wegener worked with Sabine Panossian (DP), Peter Rösner (Sound), Ina Timmerberg (Production Design) and Gitti Fuchs (Costume Design). Valery Tscheplanowa, Ursula Werner, Andreas Döhler, Felix Römer, Oskar Keymer, Marina Galic and Roland Silbernagl star.

ECHO is realized as a co-production with WDR (commissioning editor: Andrea Hanke) 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.

Carmen Losmann’s new film OECONOMIA will premier at the 70th edition of Berlinale in the Forum section. The episodic documentary reveals how the rules of the contemporary capitalist game systematically precondition growth, deficits and concentration of wealth.

With a running time of 89 minutes OECONOMIA is Carmen Losmann’s second feature-length documentary. She continued to work with cinematographer Dirk Lütter and editor Henk Drees, a creative liaison which led to the success of her debut WORK HARD PLAY HARD.

OECONOMIA was awarded the Gerd-Ruge-Grant and co-produced with German public broadcaster ZDF / 3Sat. The production was supported by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, BKM and DFFF.

The shooting of Mareike Wegener’s new film is completed: X is the letter that Ecke fails to scrawl on the lotto playslip and X marks a place where a special skill is given to him. Somewhere between breathing and singing, scars and traces, memory and fiction is where the hybrid short film X stages a ritual in honor of the spirits of the Ruhr area.

The 30-minute piece was shot during the fall in cities like Duisburg, Witten, Recklinghausen and Gelsenkirchen. Writer and director Mareike Wegener was accompanied by Hannes Lang and Johannes Klais who are responsible for imagery and sound. Eckhard Wegener and Dieter Becker are among the characters portrayed in the film.

X is produced with the support of the Film and Media Fund NRW and the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media.

After celebrating its world premiere in competition for short and medium-length films at the Visions du Réel Festival in Nyon, Switzerland, Hannes Lang’s new film RIAFN screened at Trento Film Festival where it was awarded with the “Silver Gentian” for the best artistic-technical contribution to the main competition. The short film was also awarded with the price for the best contribution to the NRW competition at the 65th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

The jury statement reads: “What a prologue offered by the initial constricted camera movement into a dark underpass. As if swallowed by an oral cavity, we are spat out again by the magnificent cinemascope images into the green expanse of the Alps. This spatial experience is juxtaposed with a vocal and acoustic resonance space in which the isolated calls of the shepherds and the ringing of the cowbells condense into a fantastic conversation between man, nature and cattle. With impressive precision and rhythm, Hannes Lang makes the incomprehensible tangible to the eyes in RIAFN – in images that literally „call“ for the big screen.“

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 for Culture and Science NRW and was produced by Petrolio in co-production with ZDF in collaboration with ARTE.

RIAFN is a cinematic journey into the soundscape of the Alps. Idiom, song, as well as calls and commands of farmers and shepherds are condensed to create a motion picture driven by local character and rhythm. Between artistic ideal and documentarian realism, the musical portrays a utopian site detached from the compulsive speed and accessibility of communication technology saturating modern life.

The 30-minute piece is co-produced by the French-German broadcaster ZDF / Arte and was filmed over the course of the summer in different parts of the Alps. Director Hannes Lang was joined by cinematographer Jakob Stark and sound engineer Peter Roesner, the script was written by Mareike Wegener.

RIAFN is produced with the support of IDM South Tyrol, Film and Media Fund NRW, German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, and Office for Film and Media of the State Government of South Tyrol.

The shooting of Carmen Losmann's new cinema-destined documentary OECONOMIA has been completed. The film uses an episodic narrative structure to describe the fundamental connections between our monetary and economic system. After WORK HARD PLAY HARD, the film is both Carmen Losmann's second feature documentary as writer and director and PETROLIO's second production, following Hannes Lang's I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER.

The film was awarded the Gerd Ruge Grant by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW in 2012 and is being produced in co-production with 3Sat. The proven collaboration with cinematographer Dirk Lütter and editor Henk Drees, which led to two Grimme awards for WORK HARD PLAY HARD, will also be continued for OECONOMIA.

OECONOMIA is a Petrolio production in co-production with ZDF/ 3Sat and is supported by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the Kuratorium junger deutscher Film, the BKM and the DFFF.

The German theatrical release date for Hannes Lang’s I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER is set for September 3rd.  The 93 minute documentary premiered last winter at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen and then opened the Kassel Doc Festival as its German premiere. In its country of coproduction, Italy, it first screened at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, where it was awarded the „Gli Imperdibili“ prize. Numerous festival participations followed, including at Hong Kong International Film Festival, Dok.fest Munich, Docs Against Gravity Film Festival in Warsaw and many more.

In attendance of the director, the Cologne premiere will take place on August 30th at 4.30 pm at the Odeon Cinema. As part of Berlin’s Documentary Film Week Kreuzberg Hannes Lang and his team will present the film at FSK Cinema on September 1st at 8 pm. Lang will also take part in discussions and a Q&A at Munich’s Monopol Cinema, where the film will screen September 2nd at 7 pm as part of the Mitt-Doks series. Another screening in attendance of the director is scheduled for September 3rd at 7 pm at Hamburg’s 3001 Cinema.

The first two screenings of Hannes Lang's new film and PETROLIO's first production I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER are behind us! On November 10, the world premiere took place in the main competition of the CPH:DOX in Copenhagen in a movie theater called "Dagmar". One day later, the Kassel Dokfest screened the documentary as the opening film of the festival in a movie theater called "Gloria".

In view of the ongoing restructuring within the global power imbalance, I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER traces the fragile alliance between economic decline and rise. In seven paradigmatic episodes set in India, Bolivia, China, USA, Italy, Thailand and Venezuela, each place contains fragments of another and each episode bears witness to the hopes and needs of its protagonists. By juxtaposing the local experience of the people with the reality of a global economy, I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER questions our understanding of boom and bust.

I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER is a production of PETROLIO in co-production with Miramonte Film from South Tyrol and ZDF/ Arte. The research was supported by the Gerd Ruge grant from the Film and Media Fund NRW, an A38 production grant, and an artist grant from the Office for Culture, Bolzano. The production was supported by Film and Media Fund NRW, DFFF, IDM South Tyrol and Office for Culture, Bozen.