Veit Helmer
Welcome to Shanghai. No, not the Chinese megalopolis full of neon and nouveaux riches, but precisely the opposite: an eponymous slum in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. In the distance, skyscrapers built with oil money tower above the city, but here dilapidated houses are packed along a single railway line. The slum is scheduled for demolition, and now and again a child is killed by one of the freight trains slowly chugging by. When the German director Veit Helmer arrives in Shanghai to make a feature film, feelings quickly run high. The locals are afraid that he wants to make them look ridiculous. The young Azerbaijani filmmaker Leyli Gafarova succeeds however in gaining the inhabitants’ trust and films a choppy, playful portrait of Shanghai in the margins of the feature film production. In the guise of a making-of, she shows intimate fragments of life in the slum, while it’s still standing.
The Bra tells the story of the lonely and soon to be pensioned train driver Nurlan. On his last day of work his train hits a clothes line and snags a white bra with blue dots with it. Determined to find the owner, Nurlan leaves no stone unturned and embarks on a dazzling journey through the neighbourhoods of Baku, trying to convince as many women as possible to try on the lost bra.
“Whatever falls from heaven, you may keep.” So goes the unwritten law of the Kazakh steppes. A law avidly adhered to by the inhabitants of a small village, who collect the space debris that falls downrange from the nearby Baikonur space station. The last two youthful members of the village are the radio operator Iskander, known as Gagarin, and the spirited Nazira. While Nazira finds it increasing difficult to conceal her love for Iskander by means of her unconventional behaviour, Iskander is evidently not only crazy about Baikonur and the vastness of outer space, but also deeply smitten with the beautiful French astronaut Julie Mahé, whose journey to the stars he wistfully follows on television.
An allegorical comedy centered on two childhood sweethearts who seem destined for one another until the women of their isolated village, angered by male indifference toward the water shortage, go on a sex strike that threatens the young couple's first night of love.
A movie wannabe from Singapore and some of Hollywood's elite contribute to Storyville's illuminating view of the world of casting.
A short film and Azerbaijan-Germany co-production by Berlin filmmaker Veit Helmer. A lonely man searches a garbage dump for usable things. Beneath a pile of rubbish he finds a life-size shop-window mannequin. He takes it home and carefully washes and dresses it. Then he himself ready, shaves and gets on his bike with the doll for a trip through the oil fields. A group of excited children run after him. He collides with a flock of sheep and the mannequin falls into a puddle of oil and sinks. The story might have it's sad ending here, but just at this moment, the man meets the love of his life...
A boy walks through the market. He steals sausages, plates and a candle. An angry market vender tracks him, but something surprises him.
With the help of airport technician Dak, Alexej breaks out of the holding area for refugees. Dak puts up the Russian, who yearns to become a pilot, in an underground labyrinth of pipes and vents. The young Indian woman Nisha is an aircraft cleaner who dreams of being a flight attendant.
Tashkent Station in the Uzbekistan capital: Passengers rush to catch their trains. A couple, locked in an intimate embrace, so deeply affects the train driver that leaves the train standing and makes a fundamental change in his life. A miniature by Veit Helmer.
Set in a dilapidated indoor swimming pool (the Central Baths in Sofia), the film details the efforts of Anton, a clueless dreamer who yearns to sail the world, and Martha, the button obsessed cashier, to maintain the illusion for Anton's blind father that business is thriving. Working to sabotage their efforts is Gregor - Anton's brother - an amoral developer who is determined to raze the entire town and construct a sprawling condominium complex. Gregor engineers an accident that seems certain to doom the business and in the process steals away Eva, the beautiful woman of Anton's dreams. Will Gregor's dastardly plan succeed?
A rare gem of cinematic storytelling that weaves docudrama, fictional reenactment, and experimental photography into a powerful, reflective work on the early days of German cinema. The film tells the story of the Skladanowsky Brothers, the German-born duo responsible for inventing the "bioskop", an early version of the film projector.
