New in cinema & streaming: which films are worthwhile – and which are not – Kultur

20,000 species of bees

Fritz Goettler: Aitor is a traditional Basque male name. But Aitor doesn’t want to be called that in this film, feels more like a girl, even her hair is way too long. Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren describes in her first feature film the confusion surrounding gender identity, both in children and in adults who cannot cope with it. The scenes in the family circle – a baptism brings them all together – are sharply defined and without false sentimentality. Sofia Otero plays Aitor with a wonderful impartiality and certainty, her gaze always seems to be directed towards a future in which she will bear her real name, Lucia. She was awarded the Actor Bear at the Berlinale. The moments are wonderful when she is with her great-aunt Lourdes, at her beekeeping boxes or in an enchanted pond in the forest.

Before, Now & Then

Annett Scheffel: Nana, the silent heroine of this atmospheric emancipation story, has lost her lover in the turmoil of post-war Indonesia. The past also haunts her years later as the wife of a wealthy businessman. Ironically, she finds an ally in his lover. The director’s gaze is tender and poetic Kamila Andini on their main character. Her cinema is a cinema of feelings – the hidden, suppressed and finally liberated. Themes such as colonialism and autocracy form the blurry background for this dream-logic-infused, visually powerful exploration of a woman’s life.

besties

Martina Knoben: It’s the old story: Two people love each other, their environment is against it. In the movie by Marion Desseigne Ravel there are two young women in a Parisian banlieue whose affection and passion for each other is doubly forbidden: because lesbian love is outlawed in this macho ideal environment and the cliques of the two young women are enemies, so both commit double “treason”. So Julia and Julia – atmospherically dense, told with a convincing banlieu background and great actresses.

Eldorado – Everything the Nazis hate

Livia Sarai Lergenmüller: In the 1920s, Berlin was considered a haven of sin and a stronghold of the LGBTQ community, until the Nazis had 15,000 gay men deported to camps in 1933. This Netflix documentary by Benjamin Cantu is dedicated to the fates of that time. The starting point is the “Eldorado” club, where all sorts of queer people met: from trans woman Charlotte Charlaw to gay Hitler confidant Ernst Röhm. And we meet Walter Arlen, who is over 100 years old and remembers his lost childhood love “Lumpi”, a Hungarian Jew. You shouldn’t miss this great documentary because of him alone.

get up

Doris Kuhn: Four women meet in a Frankfurt skate park. They’re around 18, now they’re supposed to get out into life. But first they practice together for a skate competition. Leah Becker makes a film from the middle of the bourgeoisie, little action and without major conflicts. What remains is skating. This doesn’t convey any rebellion, but shows itself as a support for the friendship, as an artistic skill, as a perspective for the future.

Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny

David Steinitz: The world probably wouldn’t have ended without a fifth “Indiana Jones” movie either, but now that it’s here, there’s still reason to be happy. Harrison Ford, 80, plays the greatest of all adventurers one last time, with touching age wisdom and melancholy. Steven Spielberg is no longer directing, but his successor is James Mangold proves to be a veritable heir to Indy’s last great journey. Hollywood rarely says goodbye to its heroes with such dignity.

Ruby dives

Carlotta Wald: That puberty a struggle is, you don’t need to tell a teenager. But 16-year-old Ruby has a special problem – inside her is a giant octopus that is destined to rule the seas. A detail that doesn’t necessarily simplify the search for one’s own identity and plunges Ruby into a daring adventure. One moment she felt irrelevant, now the peace of the ocean is in her tentacles. The filmmakers Kirk DeMicco and Faryn Pearl let little Ruby go all out in this Dreamworks animated film. A suspenseful story that reminds viewers of all ages that whoever dares to be themselves becomes free.

Thomas Schütte – I am not alone

Philip Stadelmaier: The beauty of documenting Corinna Belz about the German sculptor Thomas Schütte is that it does not focus on the person but on the creative process of the artist. Using a bronze “mermaid”, a series of busts and architectural models, the film explores the transformation of materials and the scalability of the small to the large. There are cheese rolls for the employees while the foreman smokes one cigarette after the other.

The Uncertainty Principle of Love

Susan Vahabzadeh: A few years ago, Burghart Klaußner and Caroline Peters played together with great success in the play “Heisenberg” by Simon Stephens – the film that Lars Kraume made from it is now called, according to the negotiated Heisenberg theory, the uncertainty principle. Greta (Peters) surprises the complete stranger Alexander (Klaußner) on the street with a kiss, she says she mixed him up. Anyway, he can’t get rid of her now and for a while it doesn’t seem like they’re on the same page at all. Loud and shrill, she likes to bend reality to suit her; he adapts to the circumstances. But of course love is neither predictable nor measurable. Beautiful dramedy that lives from its wonderful main actors, but it remains theatrical.