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Summer Of Sam was the first "Spike Lee Joint" without African-American actors. But Lee works on a theme that is familiar to "blacks" and other minorities: the scapegoat. It's the summer of 1977 in New York. The serial killer SAM is up to no good. All of New York is seized by the paranoid fear of the serial killer. In the Bronx, where the Italo Americans live, everyone who is different from the others is suspicious of being SAM. Summer Of Sam vibrates with guilt and fear and lust. And also with comedy! For once it's not about the murderer, but about his victims. SAM kills young brunette women - and the neighbourhood has formed into a kind of mob, ready to lynch the beast. One of the ugliest sides of man: To find someone guilty and to accuse someone who is different. 

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What traps are there if you want to make a political film? First, the tendency to self-satisfaction. A very little liberal and therefore unsympathetic way of thinking. Secondly. The emphasis on the historical context, because that would quickly make your film forget. And who should remember the specific context in the future? Who knows, perhaps there are so few political films because of these two traps? Let's think back to the time of the Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha. To the time around 1968, when film scholars in particular demanded that FILM be the image of society. FILM should draw attention to social and political grievances. Particularly important at that time in Brazil (and in South America as a whole) was the rejection of American cinema! What alternative did you have to produce as your own films? That's how Cinema Nuvo was born. Representation of the social reality of Brazil. Filmed on the streets, in the slums with amateur actors. Cinema Nuvo sees itself as Anti Hollywood with its genre stencils. Cinema Nuvo is REVOLUTIONARY!

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What's it like in the afterlife? Probably you wait. And watch the relatives. Until those whom one still knew in this world die slowly. and then it gets really boring. In Almodovar's Volver, so often underestimated by our video store customers, the deceased matriarch is called Irene (Carmen Maura). She comes from a colourful Almodovar town in the Spanish hinterland. In this colourful city the men die early and the women happily take care of their graves. From here we travel with the camera into the past to understand it as part of the present. In the present we meet Irene's daughters Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Duenas). There is also a beer drinking, staggering husband. But of course he doesn't play a role in Almodovar's world. He is only capable of disturbing peace through his presence as a stabbed corpse. Paco is the name of Raimunda's husband, who is now lying dead on the floor. And the spirit of Irene? He wanders where he is most needed: To Raimunda. This mix of black comedy and reincarnation drama works so elegantly. And actually, Raimunda's plan to found a restaurant is also in the centre of attention. Almodovar is, as we know, a women's director. He loves women, young and old! With Carmen Maura's performance, the woman who once discovered and promoted him returns to his work. In this paradise of women, there is a random solution to every problem. In addition, we get to know everyday life in the village. It certainly resembles the village where Almodovar was born! Volver means "to return" in many ways. Irene returns to Raimundas life, Carmen Maura to Almodovar's work and Almodovar to his village. Almodovar obviously loves the Hollywood melodramas of the 50s with their bright candy colors and naive optimism. In Volver everything is red. Blood red. For all those who expect something like a metaphysical film: Volver is not metaphysical at all. On the contrary, the protagonists approach all challenges with common sense. A dead woman appears as a ghost and is immediately involved in very practical family problems. Volver deals with daily life, even if murder is included. And who knows, perhaps Almodovar felt like a ghost himself as a young gay country man in the past Spain of the Franco regime?

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Haifaa Al-Mansour is the first director from Saudi Arabia, the first to break through the wall of silence. Her film, a darling of the audience! It is a work about freedom, but also about winning! But how will Wadjda arrive with all his insider jokes? The story is charming. A girl who wants to buy a bike. She has to submit to the law, hide more or less. Wajdja is not a pure comedy. The film is about how women live in Saudi Arabia. Depicted as drama, but also as satire. Again and again there are these moments, which are brutal on the one hand, but also heartwarming! At the end we see a fairy tale of hope: A little princess from the suburbs of Riyadh. Wadjda is so complex and profound that you can see him several times and yet discover something new. The great difference between private and public space, the clash of civil society with tribal rites, life in pre-modern times. Basically, the girl Wadjda is restricted from all directions. She is never free to do what she wants. Even her best friend, he blocks her path. When you read about Wajdja, you read above all about the conditions of production. Yes, there is no cinema in Saudi Arabia, Sharia instead. It is ruled by a conservative king who sees art only as a means to an end to honour the Prophet. But let's just look at the film: it doesn't bend over itself, it simply shows the lives of women. He doesn't seem indignant, although Wdjda provokes them with her colorful sneakers. She wants to buy her bike with the money she wins in a Koran competition. We are basically experiencing a rebel here! Who knows, maybe women in Saudi Arabia will even be allowed to ride their own bikes in the future?