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Arto Sebastian

Arto Sebastian

Directing

Biography

Arto Sebastian Buhmann (*1983 in Bühl) is a German film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was born in Bühl and began his filmmaking career in 2009 with the short film Fliegen. This was followed by further short films, for which he usually took on directing, producing, or writing duties. In 2016, together with Jasper Mielke and Karoline Henkel, he founded the production company Wood Water Films. Their first production was Schneeblind, a story about a blind boy during the hunger winter of 1946/47 in the Black Forest. In 2021, he produced the film Bürgermeister, Schäfer, Witwe, Drache (Mayor, Shepherd, Widow, Dragon), which won multiple awards at the Max Ophüls Film Festival. This was followed by Alaska in 2023 and Jenseits der blauen Grenze (Beyond the Blue Border) in 2024. With the documentary film Soldaten des Lichts (Soldiers of Light), he is nominated for the VFF Documentary Film Production Award at DOK.fest Munich 2025.

Known For

House of Yang
N/A

In 1949, a girl disappears from an isolated house in the Black Forest. Fifty years later, another girl disappears. Now, in the present, the ghosts of the past step out of the shadows once more.

House of Yang

2026
Beyond the Blue Border
6.7

GDR, August 1989: Hanna and Andreas became a target of the secret police and had to give up their plans for their future studies and desired professions. Instead, they face arbitrariness, mistrust and reprisals. Their only chance for a self-determined life lies in fleeing across the Baltic Sea. Fifty kilometres of water separate them from freedom - and only a thin connecting rope around their wrists saves them from absolute loneliness.

Beyond the Blue Border

2024
Alaska
7.0

Kerstin floats stoically across the Mecklenburg Lake District in her red GDR kayak. Aimlessly, between tourism and dreariness, she glides over the water for days, striving to remain alone. The many rivers and lakes are familiar to her. But where does Kerstin come from? What is she fleeing from? Who is pursuing her? The evenness of this journey breaks when Alima appears, finally asking the paddling loner the right questions.

Alaska

2023
Do You Love Me
7.8

A playful and personal journey through Lebanon’s audiovisual memory, composed entirely of archival footage. It is a love letter to Beirut, spanning 70 years of film, TV, home videos, and photography, exploring the Lebanese collective psyche – marked by joy and intimacy, destruction and loss. Through the eyes of citizens, filmmakers and artists, the film reconstructs a fragmented history in a country without a national archive, celebrating creative expression as both resistance, renewal and a way to preserve memory.

Do You Love Me

2026
Raw Materials
5.2

A drama centered around a German construction manager who works with undocumented workers and an Albanian girl searching for her missing father.

Raw Materials

2024
You Tell Me
7.1

After 20 years Moni (38) returns home to her sister Silke who has been attacked by a stranger. Moni is willing to do anything possible to find the attacker and to protect her sister. But is that really what Silke (34) wants? And if so, who is actually the one, to be protected? And above all, protect from who? And which role does the offender René (38) play, who doesn't even understand why he did it. A melancholic film that plays with three different perspectives and constantly reinvents itself while searching for answers.

You Tell Me

2019
The Great Phuket
6.7

Fourteen-year-old Li Xing lives in a district full of ruins and reconstruction. School brings him nothing but problems and his family is no help at all. One day, he finds an underground shelter where strange things happen...

The Great Phuket

2024
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N/A

No description available.

Halbmond:abnehmend

2011
Silent Observers
N/A

With the population in decline, a traditional way of life is ending in a remote, rundown Bulgarian village. This poetic and at times tragicomic film follows the last remaining inhabitants from the perspective of several domesticated animals. There’s a great deal of attention given to sound, light and movement: an overflowing bucket, sunlight dancing in rustling foliage, the ticking sound of ants on the move, and a cowbell clanging in the wind.

Silent Observers

2025
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N/A

No description available.

Stavanger

2014
Soldiers of Light
9.0

David is a raw vegan influencer. In addition to spreading supplements, he also shares stories about dark forces and God. The film delves into a complex world between conspiracy ideologies and self-optimization, portraying people who want to establish a kingdom in Germany.

Soldiers of Light

2025
Radikal
N/A

Simon joins left-wing extremism, the far-right scene, and Salafism in various scenarios.

Radikal

2016
February, Seven Days
N/A

After years of estrangement, single parent Arkadiy gets a visit from brother Igor and his son from Odesa. According to Jewish custom, they mourn their recently deceased mother while digging up old conflicts. As the war breaks out in Ukraine, the family is thrown into turmoil, and the brothers must take a closer look at their relationship to their homeland.

February, Seven Days

Snowblind
6.0

"Snowblind" is set in the black forest in the ice cold winter of 1946. Peter, a 16-year old, blind boy is trying to get out of Germany together with his father Heiner – a former SS officer. They carry the fatally wounded soldier Karl, who promised to guide them across the border to Switzerland. By the time they reach his families remote farm house, Karl has died and Peter and Heiner hope for Karls father to fulfill his sons promise. A snow storm forces them to stay at the farm house, causing highly sensible dynamics between the contradicting characters - sparking a chain of fateful events.

Snowblind

2017