Life in a Day 2020

Wim Wenders ponders about the future of our society and film making amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an observation over four seasons THE STANDSTILL shows Vienna and its surroundings along with encounters with people during and after the Corona crisis. The film tells of the immediate and also the long-term effects, which can only be evaluated and classified in the future.

Be it as ‘Unreal Tournament Kid’, ‘KeyboardCrasher’, or ‘Angry German Kid’: Almost everywhere across the world this video of a youth who freaks out whilst playing on the computer and destroys his keyboard is known. Many still share it today as a meme when chatting without knowing that it was staged. Also: the young guy never uploaded the video himself. Powerless, he had to witness how it was shared and distorted countless times – how it destroyed a part of his life. Now, for the first time, Norman Kochanowski speaks with ZAPP about his story and the consequences of virality.

Highlighting the heroic efforts of Dorothy Oliver to keep her small town of Panola, Alabama safe from COVID-19, The Panola Project chronicles how an often-overlooked rural Black community came together in creative ways to survive.

Filmed entirely inside the world of virtual reality (VR), this immersive and revealing documentary roots itself in several unique communities within VR Chat, a burgeoning virtual reality platform. Through observational scenes captured in real-time, in true documentary style, the film reveals the growing power and intimacy of several relationships formed in the virtual world, many of which began during the COVID-19 lockdown, while so many in the physical world were facing intense isolation.

One neighborhood in New York City, March 2020: the coronavirus is spreading rapidly, the federal government is clueless, and life seems increasingly surreal. A month later, the city has become an epicenter of the pandemic as the death rate spirals upwards. Then the racial justice protests erupt... Strange Days Diary NYC is an intimate account of living through a disruptive, frightening, yet inspiring time.

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

After seven years in prison, a female student in Tehran is hanged for murder. She had acted in self-defence against a rapist. For a pardon, she would have had to retract her testimony. This moving film reopens the case.

In 2013, online clay animator Robert Benfer scammed hundreds of fans out of thousands of dollars and has continued to become less of the independent film icon he used to be, though his unique influence on video creators remains to this day. This film not only sheds light on how Benfer's films impacted young filmmakers, but also how a talented independent artist can fall from grace no matter how obscure they are.