Dancing Dreams
Berlinale Special/Generation
Film Festival 2010
Dancing Dreams
A Film by Anne Linsel
2009 - Germany - Documentary - 1.85 DCP - 89 min.
with Teenagers perform „Kontakthof“ by Pina Bausch
Language: German
Produced by Gerd Haag & Anne Linsel
The dance performance „Kontakthof“ bears the unmistakable signature of Pina Bausch: it deals with forms of human contact, the encounters between the sexes, and the search for love and tenderness with all the attendant anxieties, yearnings and doubts. It is about feelings, which pose a big challenge, particularly for young people. For almost a year teenagers from over eleven schools in Wuppertal went on an emotional journey. Every Saturday, 40 students, aged between 14 to 18 years, rehearsed under the direction of the Bausch-dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet and under the intense supervision of Pina Bausch herself. The film „Dancing Dreams“ by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann accompanies the rehearsal process culminating in the opening night. We watch the teenagers making their first, still clumsy attempts to transform the subjects of the dance performance into motion and choreography and to develop an own, individual body expression. They discover themselves in a process, which leads great personal growth. Gentle and shy but also aggressive contacts condensate to individual experiences that many of the teenagers encounter for the first time on stage. Pina Bausch has always encouraged the young dancers „to be themselves.“ It is behind their own movements, fears, feelings and desires that their personal „Dancing Dreams“ become visible. At the end each of them has not only grown up, but above all has become more self-confident, independent and more sceptical facing prejudices. Employing an unusual adjacency, the film introduces the young protagonists in sensitive ways, it culminates in drawing a portrait of an entire generation. Pina Bausch died on June 30th, 2009. „Dancing Dreams – teenagers perform „Kontakthof“ by Pina Bausch“ shows the last motion pictures and the last interview with the world-famous dancer and choreographer.
Berlinale Special/Generation
Film Festival 2010
More Films
Girls on Wire
A film by Vivian Qu
2025 - China - Drama/Thriller - 114 min.
Cousins Tian Tian and Fang Di were raised like sisters until family struggles pushed them apart. Fang Di moves away to work as a stuntwoman in China's largest film studios to clear her family's debts. Tian Tian remains behind, forced to deal with her father's addiction, and falls prey to the local mafia. Forced to escape to the big city, Tian Tian seeks out her cousin. Thrown together against their will and followed by the mob, they will need to combine their strength and resilience to escape a dramatic fate that threatens to consume them both.
The Cakemaker
A film by Ofir Raul Graizer
2017 - Germany/Israel - Drama - 2.39 - 104 min.
Thomas, a young and talented German baker, is having an affair with Oren, an Israeli married man who dies in a car crash. Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers.
Keeping his secret for himself, he starts working for Anat, his lover’s widow, who owns a small café. Although not fully kosher and despised by the religious, his delicious cakes turn the place into a city attraction. Finding himself involved in Anat’s life in a way far beyond his anticipation, Thomas will stretch his lie to a point of no return.
Mr Bachmann and his Class
A film by Maria Speth
2021 - Germany - Documentary - 2.39 - 217 min.
MR BACHMANN AND HIS CLASS is an intimate documentary portraying the bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.