At the Berlin GLOBIANS Doc Fest we like to know and show more about cultures of the world, which in our understanding is more than just an exhibition platform for ethnological or sociological films. The need for a global understanding of regional issues may give birth to new type of individual life style: People who no longer live in just one community but have a geographical "life span" to several cultures and continents. 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. 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 are not an ethnological film festival but we are very interested in the difference and credentials of local cultures, in the difference of their living conditions and in cultural history. We strongly believe that animal life and the rights of animals are an essential part of the human condition. Hence we also look into the communication processes of animals and humans, even if this process is disturbed or malfunctional and leads to strong conflicts between humans and animals - and mostly to the near or fulfilled extinction of species. Hence, we show films on animals but we are not a "wild life" film festival. Furthermore, we do not see a genre difference between "ethnological movies" and "wild life" pictures, because the time when we could have pretended to present movies 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 projects which try an alternative usage of technology for the better. 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 indy 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). Film makers need to find and found distribution models themselves and we like to provide a forum for the creation of film maker networks. After four years of our initial startup 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 capitol BERLIN in 2009. Thus we're also bringing our English language documentary festival closer to the community of appr. 20,000 Anglo-American-Australian expats living in Berlin. During our initial Berlin festival run in August 2009 we had the honour to hold our entire festival proceedings at KINO TONI, a wonderful old-style 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 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"). For the inaugurational festival run of Globians doc fest in Berlin Dr. Michael Verhoeven was giving the key note opening speech and took part in the festival proceedings. We were very proud and we are looking very forward to come back to Kino Toni. It was a wonderful experience. 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 festial 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. 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."
„A Map For Saturday“, the festival opener of 2007. © by Brook Silva-Braga
 
Film Director Curtis Craven filming „Burning Judas“
(presented at Globians Film Festival 2007) © by Curtis Craven
 
Alexis Krasilovsky at work: „Women Behind The Camera“ World Festival Premiere at Globians Film Fest 2007 © by Alexis Krasilovsky
 
6th Globians world & culture Documentary Film Festival Berlin August 13-18, 2010 Globians Doc Fest Berlin     
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