“Der Imker” celebrates international premiere in Munich

“Der Imker” by Mano Khalil, which premiered at the Solothurn Film Festival and was honoured with the “Prix de Soleure 2013,” will celebrate its international premiere at the 28^th Munich International Documentary Film Festival (May 8-15, 2013). It will be screened with nine other works in the competition comprising German–language films and is thus in the running for the award endowed with EUR 5,000. Mano Khalil portrays a beekeeper who, in spite of having lost everything in the turmoil of the Turkish-Kurdish war, is able to regain his passion for bees and his unwavering trust in individual human beings in Switzerland.

Broad spectrum
The festival audience in Munich will be able to discover a broad spectrum of Swiss documentary filmmaking. Also celebrating their international festival premieres are the satirical documentary film “Image Problem” by Simon Baumann and Andreas Pfiffner as well as Anne Thoma’s film “Miles & War” portraying private peace mediators. Films with successful festival careers screened in Munich are Barbara Miller’s “Forbidden Voices” about bloggers from Cuba, Iran and China as well as the film “Where The Condors Fly,” in which the Chilean director Carlos Klein portrays the Russian filmmaker Viktor Kossakowsky while shooting his most recent work. In addition, the film “Fara ad synda” (Swimming And Watching The Birds) by Bettina Schwarzenbach, the 30-minute film “Esther und die Geister” (Esther And The Spirits) by Heidi Specogna and the classic from 1990 “Step Across The Border” by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel will be presented in Munich. Switzerland is also represented in the Film School Forum with three short films produced at the Zurich University of the Arts: “Bunga Bunga” by Maurizius Staerkle-Drux; “Julie will mehr” by Susanne Regina Meures; and “Le dimanche en famille” by Annie Gisler.

Creative documentary works for festival audience
The DOK.fest is a ”festival of the festivals” for the Munich audience, with an emphasis on the promotion of creative documentary films. Together with the Leipzig Festival and the “Duisburger Filmwoche,” it ranks among the most important festivals in German-speaking countries for international documentary film productions.

Zurich, May 7, 2013