We are the tide

Sebastian Hilger : 2016
Wir sind die Flut

Fifteen years ago the sea disappeared from Windholm's shore. The tide simply retreated and has remained out ever since. There were no recognisable causes, it just happened. From that day this anomaly has lain like a curse on the area, throwing up questions and causing disquiet.
Ambitious physics student Micha has a bold theory and hopes to figure out the phenomenon. But after years of preliminary work, his project is rejected by the rigidly old-style university system. Micha and his colleague Jana secretly set out to test his hypothesis. In the restricted military area, the young researchers meet the piteous remains of the village community. They arrive in Windholm and fall under the spell of the isolated village community where there are no children. For years the people here have been trying to come to terms with the fact that, on the day the tide went out, their children also disappeared. They searched high and low for them until eventually they were declared drowned but their bodies were never found. Gradually, Jana and Micha begin to suspect that it is no coincidence that they of all people have ended up in Windholm. Did they even have a choice? Or was it predestined? And precisely what are they looking for? Little by little the pair not only begin to unravel a great secret, they also discover how they themselves are entangled in Windholm's history. The film premiered in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section at Berlin International Film Festival 2016.

Augustine

Alice Winocour : 2012

Paris, winter 1885. At the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Professor Jean-Marin Charcot studies a mysterious illness which he calls 'Hysteria'. Home to thousands of seemingly catatonic women and run by only a handful of doctors, the isolated corridors of the hospital perfectly shadow the Professor's hypnotic tests on his patients. Augustine, a 19-year-old girl, is admitted to the hospital and soon becomes the Professor's favourite subject; the star of his demonstrations of hypnosis. But the object of his studies will soon become the object of his desire. Alice Winocour's feature debut premiered in competition in the Séances Spéciales at the Semaine de la Critique at Festival de Cannes 2012.

The Wall

Julian Roman Pölsler : 2012
Die Wand

A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contact when an invisible, unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside, leaving her isolated in the Austrian Alps. Accompanied by her loyal dog Lynx, she becomes immersed in a world untouched by civilisation and ruled by the laws of nature. Told via the voice-over of the woman as she enters her account of daily events in her journal, all the acting is delivered through expressions or actions. An adaption of the best-selling novel by Marlen Haushofer, this beautiful tale of survival and endurance, ultimately about the meaning of humanity, is a moving masterpiece that leaves a lasting impression.