At the GLOBIANS DOC FEST film festival series we like to know and show more about cultures of the world. The need for a global understanding of regional and local issues may give birth to new type of conscious life style: People who no longer live in just one community but have a geographical "life span" to several cultures and continents. Basicly, this is also a prototype of what an anthropologist is and does. Hence we are proud to present movies on Globians: the inhabitants of our globe with a global understanding of cultures, societies, politics and history -- while working proactively for change towards a sustainable planetary life form on earth.

 

We are not a film festival for anti-globalization topics and their peer groups but we remain critical and open for films on economical and ecological destruction. More than that we look into new cinematic horizons on how we can overcome those destructions and find paths for a new "planetarian" life style that is more compatible to our near future than the current industrial organization of functional societies. We like to show films about this avant garde of people who are in search of this "planetarian" life style in their projects. This is were "art" and "creation" comes into the picture. -- We call those people "Globians" and the Globians Doc Fest is the place to show profiles on this type of people: cinematic introductions to their work and projects, their understanding, their sensibility, their suffering and their success.

 

We also strongly believe that the wisdom of plants, animals and species and their rights are an essential part of the human condition. Hence we also look into the interaction processes of plants, animals and humans, even if this process is disturbed or malfunctional and leads to strong conflicts -- and in most cases to the near or fulfilled extinction of species. Hence, Globians Doc Fest is neither a "ethnological film festival" nor a "wild life & nature film festival" but somehow a combination of both and much more: environmentalism, organic food production, threats of mono cultures, economic accelleration, energy and climate issues, biotech & nanotech hazards, digital surveillance and 'social conditioning' by digital devices are also coming into the picture. The times when we could have pretended to present documentaries of  "untouched wild/tribe life in danger" are definitely over. This "untouched wild/tribe life in danger" topic is pure fiction now: but we are a documentary film festival. With global communication means everything is touched now in every small part of the world. We also like to show movies that deal with this "technology intrusion into the wild" -- and if there are any projects out there trying an alternative usage of a wholesome technology for the better. -- How should a home, a house and a court be like? -- How will the world look like when we all are going back to the "small is beautiful" scale approach after globalized world economics have collapsed? -- Prepare for the worst with the best you have now.

 

 

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Independent documentary filmmaking today:

 

In a time when the shift from analogue film production to digital production, editing and distribution is almost done, we like to see strong individual voices in film making who know what they are doing, when less "effect filters" are more to the substance of a work. We strongly believe in independence when "independent" is not just a label for better selling within current distribution structures. We like "mavericks" in film making very much. But we don't like "escapism", if you know what the difference means.

 

We know about the current issues of indie documentary distribution and do not have an answer yet ourselves. However we have seen our visiting film makers exchanging DVDs of their films to each other and we strongly believe that this a necessary first step for cooperation instead of competition -- and a first step towards a coop-style distribution in film maker driven networks while solutions for those distribution issues may not be coming from outside (not the real ones despite all the current online streaming plethora -- and despite all "experts" in the online streaming biz who pretend they already have their solution ready). We don't need new distribution monopolies in the dissemination of works -- so film makers need to find and found new distribution models themselves and we like to provide a forum for the creation of film maker networks.

 

 

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More on the history of the Globians Doc Fest festival series:

 

After four years of our initial start-up period with festival operations in the Potsdam vicinity of Berlin (our festival house used to be Potsdam's Old City Hall from 1755 which is now being converted to the Potsdam municipal museum), we have taken a big step forward to move our entire festival proceedings to the German capital BERLIN in 2009. Thus we're also bringing our English language documentary festival closer to the community of approx. 20,000 Anglo-American-Australian expats living in Berlin.

 

During our first two initial Berlin festival runs in August 2009 and 2010 we had the honour to be able to hold our entire festival proceedings at KINO TONI, a wonderful old-style Berlin cinema bulit in 1919 by the great film producer Eric Pommer. During changing times in German history, Kino Toni became part of Ufa and later became part of East-German Defa studios. The cinema is now owned privately by AMPAS® Academy Award® winning film director Dr. Michael Verhoeven (Oscar® best foreign film for "The White Rose" and Oscar® nomination for "The Nasty Girl"). In 2009 and 2010 Dr. Michael Verhoeven was also giving the key note opening speech and took part in the festival proceedings. In 2010 his spouse, famous actress Senta Berger honoured the Globians Doc Fest Berlin with her attendance. We didn't know before that she was and is also a big fan of high-profile documentaries. We were very proud and we are looking very forward to come back to Kino Toni. It was a wonderful experience in both years. In 2010 we were also kick-starting the cinema's festivities when KINO TONI celebrated its 90th anniversary.

 

Right from our festival beginnings in 2005 we had film makers visiting the festival proceedings at their own cost from as far as Japan and California. In 2006 14 film makers accompanied their festival entries in person. What they really liked was the "intimate" and "family like" festival atmosphere and direct access to fellow film makers. This is something we really want to keep in a world of commercialization.

 

You might not get "masses" from the usual industrialized festival biz but a very communicative field of program experience and exchange with fellow film makers working in your field of interest. To maintain this atmosphere of cooperation between film makers this is a NO AWARDS AT ALL festival. All films we select for our festival program are considered to be precious.

 

The producer of our 2006 festival opener "10 Questions For The Dalai Lama" received three buying bids/requests for his film within days after giving us the German festival premiere of his film which later lead to a nationwide theatrical release; H.H.The Dalai Lama was attending the film's German cinema premiere in Berlin at the time. As a pretty young and upstart festival project GLOBIANS DOC FEST was very proud.

 

During our 3rd festival season in August 2007 we not only had the pleasure to present the world premiere of "Memory of the Waves" by film maker Kazutaka Tokoda from Japan but we also had the honour to show to world festival premiere of "Women Behind The Camera" by Alexis Krasilovsky. She made the GLOBIANS Doc Fest a very special compliment while visiting the festival in person and speaking to journalists. Alexis Krasilovsky said to them: "GLOBIANS Film Festival ist the most anti-Sundance film festival I have experienced in recent years". Believe it or not. But all visiting film makers liked the intimate atmosphere, the amazing spectrum of indy docs to watch and the family style of operation at the Globians Doc Fest.

 

The 2008 GLOBIANS Doc Fest presented the European premiere of "Welcome to Macintosh" by Josh Rizzo and Rob Baca as well as all seven parts of "The War" by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (in its original version and length). Quite a few young and sometimes first time film makers of feature length documentaries were also programmed at the 2008 GLOBIANS festival run alongside a doc from "the master of cultures" Werner Herzog: "More Shoes" by Lee Kazimir, "Batey Mosquito" by Eduardo Miyar and Carmen Ballvé, "In the Moment" by Diogo Ueno and "Das Haus an der Strasse" by Julian Weber, to name just four examples. -- We had 42 film makers with us during the 2008 festival proceedings, up from 26 in 2007. Those 42 film makers made a wonderful melange-mix of cultures alone while visiting from countries as far and culturally heterogeneous as Bangladesh, Brazil, Mexico, USA, Canada, Ireland, UK, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Spain and Germany. More than 30 film makers made it to Berlin in 2009 (while screening a festival program only half the size of our fare-well program to Potsdam in 2008), so Berlin seems very attractive for film makers to visit, indeed. Some even started to shoot a new documentary in Berlin while visiting the festival and accompanying their festival films. Yes: Berlin is currently one of the most fascinating cities worldwide.

 

This proved true also for 2010 when we had the honor to present yet again several world premieres: "The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical" by Sarah McCarthy (a huge hit also at Torronto Int. Film Festival 2010); "Human Eaters" by Sam Kenderick and Jeffrey Yohalem; "The Man Behind the Curtain" by Joshua Wolterman and Michael Nichols; "The Triumph of Astana" by Birk Weiberg; In 2010 we also had the honour to present the international premier of "A Village Called Versailles" on the Vietnamese community in post-Katrina New Orleans by S. Leo Chiang and "Deep Green" by Matt Briggs.

 

With all its casual and informal style the Globians Doc Fest Berlin feels more like a workshop and private screening encounter than a queue-along-the-block driven festival where oversight and direct access to fellow film makers is lost soon. Berlin's expat magazine EXBERLINER described us (in their 2008 summer issue): "Red carpets, award ceremonies, and fashion critiques may be absent, but the Globians Film Festival's programme, intimacy and authenticity more than make up for its lack of bombast." And in 2009 our friends at EXBERLINER magazine wrote: "GLOBIANS DOC FEST goes back to the roots of the good old-fashioned approach of documentaries documenting reality."

 

2010 marked also the beginning of a second branch of the Globians Doc Fest film festival series: At the Linden-Museum of Stuttgart the 1st Globians Doc Fest Audiovisual Anthropology took place, focusing more on "social anthropology" subjects, topics and methodics while still keeping the "wild mix" of the Globians festival programming. – The 2nd festival venture of Globians Doc Fest Audiovisual Anthropology is scheduled for 2012 in the German city of Halle.

 

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