Rivers Film Festival
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| free admission |
| no ticket required |
| 14 years and older |
| German |
| Humboldt Lab, 1st floor |
| Belongs to: On Water |
The Rivers Film Festival at Humboldt Labor is all about rivers. Three short films will be shown, each looking at the topic from a different angle. The focus is always on the relationship between humans and these waterways, which are sometimes free-flowing and sometimes heavily regulated.
In film discussions, filmmakers explain their motivations for exploring this fluid element. The film festival is part of the Fluid Interdisciplinarities Festival.
Meanders or the Invented River
In the middle of summer, a group of friends decide to descend a river in a raft. The obstacles, both physical and living, that they encounter bear witness to the transformations and alterations of waterways by men. Both road-trip and scientific talk, the film weaves links between the immersed and submerged worlds whose multiple prisms engage a restorative encounter between humans and non-humans.
A film by: Marie Lusson (France), Émilien De Bortoli (France)
France | 2023 | 73 min | vostf
Sélection officielle 2024: Cap sur l’environnement
2024 / Prix Gaïa
Aquatopia on Tour – A performative journey into the world of water
Aquatopia on Tour is an interactive art project that creates creative meeting places with mystical water creatures in public spaces. Fascinating water creatures came into contact with people in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Neustrelitz on World Water Day 2025 to raise awareness of the topic of water and emphasise the importance of this element as a source of life. With water sounds and performative play, they demonstrated the many facets of water – from gentle drops to stormy oceans. The message: water is not only a vital element, but also a symbol of change, power and connection. Together, we are setting an example for the conscious and sustainable use of water and for the protection of our precious elixir of life. Water is a being from which we can learn a great deal, including how to live in harmony with our planet. Reflection cards made from recycled material were distributed to encourage physical and inner reflection on changing water awareness.
Bellerophontes Dream – Short film of a river journey
The film documents the two-day river trip undertaken by a ferryman, a filmmaker, an actor and a scientist in early October from the Spreewald to Berlin. The goal of the trip was to bring the research, the art works and a tank of water directly from the natural harbor Raddusch to the urban river side venue Holzmarkt 25, Berlin. And all this with the help of the actor which connects both places – the Spree.
In text and image, the film reflects on the possibility of leaving one’s human point of view and taking non-human perspectives, a movement we know from myth. What happens when we question the centrality of the human and give space to the multiplicity of non-human actors? We enter the realm of metamorphosis…
A film by Oliver Rossoll (image) and Maximilian Grünewald (text). Featuring Steven Lehmann (barge ride), with support by Pauline Münch (organization), Diane Barbé and Jonas Dahm (audio).
Participants
Oliver was born in Nuremberg in 1987 and works as an award-winning filmmaker, cameraman and video artist. He studied art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main with Rotraut Pape. Rossol realized video works for Ersan Mondtag at Schauspiel Frankfurt. His long-standing collaboration with director Alexander Eisenach has resulted in productions such as Anthropos Tyrann (Ödipus) at the Volksbühne Berlin and Einer gegen Alle at the Residenztheater Munich. His feature film debut Grün ist eine unmenschliche Farbe with Alexej Lochmann and Lisa Birke Balzer debuted in 2022.
Maaximilian is an actor and freelance dramaturg and received his training at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Academy of Music and Theater in Leipzig. This was followed by engagements at the Staatstheater in Karlsruhe and Hanover. In his work he is concerned with human/non-human relations as well as the dramatization of scientific discourses. In 2020, he co-founded the collective ANTHROPOS EX. The collective seeks ways to give a stage to non-human actors, experimenting with methods from theater, film, the visual arts, and the natural sciences. This has led to collaborations with students from the ETH (ZH), the ZHdK (ZH) and the HFG Karlsruhe, among others. In close collaboration with scientists, artists and residents of the Spreewald village Raddusch, Maximilian Grünewald developed the artistic concept of River Stories.
Marie Lusson is a filmmaker and doctoral student in the sociology of science at the French National Research Institute for Agricultural Research (INRAE, Montpellier). Her research focuses on river restoration projects as a testing ground for nature policies. She is more broadly interested in the reconfigurations brought about by the coexistence of humans, non-humans and non-living entities, particularly through film ethnography.
Emilien De Bortoli is a versatile artist. He studied film at Paris Diderot University and the International Institute of Image and Sound, and music and composition at the conservatories of Cergy, Villeurbanne and Montpellier. Through his films, compositions, performances and sound inventions, he questions our ways of apprehending the infinitesimal. He attempts, through sensory experience, to make other relationships with the world perceptible, inspired by a teeming and uncontrollable life force that has become too silent today.
Fluid Interdisciplinarities
Fluid Interdisciplinarities will take place in Berlin from October 23-25, 2025, bringing together researchers, artists, and practitioners working with water to explore diverse projects and perspectives. It will showcase collaborations across the natural and social sciences, arts, humanities, and civil society, fostering dialogue and exchange. It is being planned by the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) and artist Regina Hügli (One Body of Water), in cooperation with the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the University of Montpellier, the Knowledge Exchange with Society team and the TAT – Tieranatomisches Theater at the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HZK).
Partner
