Dagmar Biller

Annual awarding of the Grimme Awards.

“Being Jérôme Boateng” tells the story of a soccer world champion between triumph and downfall. From the soccer field to the 2014 World Cup title, from celebrated symbol of integration to convicted perpetrator of intentional bodily harm against his ex-partner. The documentary series looks behind the façade of professional soccer—a system that produces heroes but neglects people. It also addresses the question of how a soccer player is stylized into a role model by the media and society and burdened with excessive expectations. Boateng's story is thus also one of false projections that encourages us to reflect on our treatment of and longing for sports idols: What do we want to see in them? Do soccer players have to be heroes?

The story of the fascist conman Fritz Julius Kuhn is as unknown as it is terrifying: Kuhn is a German immigrant who pretends to be Hitler’s deputy in the USA during the 1930s. He is at the top of the German-American Bund, a fascist organization of Americans of German origin. The followers of this association march in goose-step with swastika flags and in Nazi-uniforms thru New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. They gather in thousands in stadiums and sing the Horst-Wessel-song.

The documentary tells the story of Uschi, a farmer living free and recluded in the bavarian alps. Shot in epic black and white pictures, Still follows Uschi's life over a ten year period. From an untroubled summer of making cheese through pregnancy and the uncertain future of the parental farm, Matti Bauer portrays Uschi's struggle to keep alive the dream of a way of life that has become rather untypical in this day and age.

June 1904: What had started out as a cheerful event, the annual outing of the Lutheran Church in East Village, ended in a terrible disaster. Nearly 1100 people, mainly women and children perished when the excursion boat General Slocum went on fire and sank – within sight of thousands of New Yorkers who watched helplessly on the shores of the East River. It became clear quite soon that not a single fire drill had been carried out since the ship had entered services. This was only to be the tip of the iceberg: With inter­views, photos, archival footage and visits to the actual locations we will recount the event in which an entire Manhattan neigh­bourhood was wiped out and shine light on the political scandal which rocked New York in the wake of the „Slocum Disaster“ – eight years before the Titanic sank.