MISSION Kabul-Luftbrücke
ARD
Kabul-Luftbrücke started as a group of volunteers from Berlin that tried everything to help their friends out of Kabul in August 21. It then became a NGO that evacuated more than 2700 people from Afghanistan in the year between August 21 to 22. The evacuees have worked as local forces, media workers or human rights activists. The series documents how these evacuations took places – at night through the Afghan-Pakistan border crossing Torkham, during the day by a charted plane. It follows four families from the moment they are told that Germany will take them until their arrival in their new homecountry.
From Vanessa Schlesier, Ronal Rist and Antje Boehmert
Editorial: Ute Beutler
Clean cars, dirty batteries: Cobalt mining in the Congo
ZDF
A 45-minute documentary about the cobalt production in electric vehicles.
People who buy an electric car want the "good" car, the car that pollutes the environment as little as possible. But cobalt is needed for the production of electric car batteries.
Few people are aware of the human suffering involved in mining this coveted raw material. The film shows the efforts of the European car industry to prove clean supply chains and documents in the cobalt mines in Congo that this is impossible.
Director: Vanessa Schlesier, Lukas Augustin
Collaboration: Carina Körner Editor: Stefanie Reichel, Daniel Latzel, Julian Lyubych
Camera: Lukas Augustin, Vanessa Schlesier, Daniel Stiefelhagen Production: Kobalt Documentary
Producer: Katrin Sandmann Commissioning Editor: Wolfgang Aull (ZDF)
Germany’s Neo Nazis and Far Right
PBS Frontline
FRONTLINE investigates the rise of far-right extremism and violence in Germany. The documentary traces how extremists have carried out terror plots and attacks on Jews and migrants, infiltrated the security services, and what authorities are doing to confront the growing problem.
Director: Evan Williams
Producer: Evan Williams, Dan Edge
DoP: Theresa Breuer, Vanessa Schlesier
Local producer: Theresa Breuer, Vanessa Schlesier
Beirut's cultural decline
Deutsche Welle
The explosion in Beirut was a shock for Mary Cochrane, a member of one of Lebanon’s most prominent aristocratic families. Sursock Palace, where the family lives, was severely damaged in the blast, but there‘s no money to save it.
Beirut's reputation as the "Paris of the Middle East" was built on the city's many historic structures. These architectural gems elegantly combined both European and Middle-Eastern influences. After the explosion in early August, thousands of these buildings now lie in ruin. Most of them are privately owned, but their owners currently lack the means to secure them. Beirut's cultural scene is sounding the alarm: the destruction of these buildings threatens the soul of the city. But there is no money to rescue them. Donations are currently their only hope. Mary Cochrane is struggling to reconstruct the family home, or at least make it winter-proof. After all, Sursock Palace is one of the most famous landmarks in Beirut's Christian quarter, Ashrafieh. A report by Theresa Breuer and Vanessa Schlesier.
After the explosion in Beirut - the art scene draws hope | Arte TRACKS
ARTE
The explosion in the port of Beirut on 4 August 2020 changed everything. TRACKS visits two artists in the destroyed city in Lebanon.
We meet Raymond Essayan, artist and pianist, who was almost thrown off the roof of his Mar Mikhael neighbourhood by the blast. And we meet the rapper "Chyno With A Why?". The founder of the first battlerap league in the Middle East recently signed his first international record deal. His album "Mamluk" is scheduled for release in 2021. TRACKS talks to him about hope and his way out of the crisis.
Ultra-Orthodox Dropouts - New Life for Jews in Germany
ARTE
In recent years, Germany of all places has become a refuge for Jews who have left their ultra-Orthodox, strictly religious communities. Rabbi Akiva Weingarten helps them find their way into a new, secular life.
Worldwide, more than 1.3 million Jews live in ultra-Orthodox communities. A kind of parallel world in which God's rules alone count. Every aspect of everyday life is clearly regulated: The women take care of the household and raising the children, the men devote their lives to the study of religion. According to estimates, ten percent of Jews in Israel alone leave their strictly religious community, and the trend is rising. Young adults in particular are fleeing, surprisingly to Germany. Akiva Weingarten grows up in a New York suburb, with the Satmarers, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. In 2014, he makes a radical break. He leaves his wife and three children and starts a new life in Berlin. Without a family, without a credit card or a bank account - and without ever having learned a trade. In the meantime, a free community of former ultra-Orthodox has grown up around him, whom the rabbi helps with practical life and also theological questions. Dropouts Moshe Barnett and David Lamberger have been living together in a shared flat in Dresden for only a few months. They are not only looking for a new life, but also a new relationship with God.
Lebanon after the explosion in Beirut
Deutsche Welle
The explosions in Beirut's port turned property agent and party king Johnny Assaf into an activist. He's coordinating the protests against Lebanon's politicians, accusing them of leaving the people to pick up the pieces.
They have no recourse but their own initiative. Volunteers are coming to Beirut from all across Lebanon, bringing food, helping to clean up and caring for the wounded. Especially hard hit are the quarter of a million Syrian refugees living in Beirut, most of them in the port's immediate vicinity. Now, many of them have lost what little they had. Discontent had already been smoldering in Lebanon for months. Critics blame the country's rigidified and corrupt political system for the ongoing economic crisis. They say the explosions in the port were only the last gasp of an epic and wide-ranging failure of the state. Will the Lebanese give themselves over to resignation or allow their fury to ignite a revolt? A Report by Theresa Breuer and Vanessa Schlesier.
Who owns the Holy Land?
ARTE
Two German Jews move into a settlement near Bethlehem. The reason: they dream of a life in the Holy Land. Under international law, Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are considered illegal. But the settlers believe they have a right to this land. What attracts Germans to the settlements? And how do they imagine living together with the Palestinians?
What drives people from Europe to exchange their comparatively comfortable lives for a much more complicated and dangerous one in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel? Chaya Tal from Cologne and Nethanel von Boxberg from Bonn have done just that: they have moved to the Gush Etzion settlement block near Bethlehem in the West Bank. Both are convinced that Judea and Samaria, as they call this area, belongs to the people of Israel, i.e. to the Jews. Under international law, however, the area is considered illegally occupied by Israel, even though Israel's government does not accept this. Chaya and Nethanel are not the only Europeans among the approximately 450,000 settlers in the West Bank - Belgians, French, Swiss or Dutch have found a new home in Gush Etzion. And especially among the Europeans are many who live an astonishing contradiction: on the one hand, they occupy land that belongs to the Palestinians, and at the same time they advocate peaceful coexistence with them. How does that work? Chaya speaks fluent Arabic and has friends in the Palestinian villages, which Israeli citizens are actually strictly forbidden to enter.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews - How difficult is it to leave the community in Jerusalem?
Y-Kollektiv
Those who grow up in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community have their lives predetermined: what to wear, what to believe in, who to marry. Those who want to break out of the rigid system of the ultra-Orthodox are usually cast out. They have to leave their families behind, their children, their support. Finding their way in modern society, without the familiar rules, can be overwhelming.
The reporter duo Theresa Breuer and Vanessa Schlesier accompany Esti, who has already been to a rehab clinic several times for alcoholism. She left the ultra-orthodox Jewish community and her husband two years ago and is therefore rarely allowed to see her son. In the ultra-religious Jerusalem district of Mea Shearim, the reporters meet Nachi, an artist who grew up here. Nachi explains to them how he manages to walk between both worlds. He also takes them to Joelisch Kraus and his extended family, a well-known ultra-Orthodox who talks to them about the clear rules of the religion.
But how difficult is it to leave this closed community?
Corona in Jerusalem – Eastern under a state of emergency
ARTE
Usually at Easter, crowds of people push through the streets of Jerusalem - tens of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world flock to the Holy Land for the important holidays. But the Corona crisis has Jerusalem in its grip and the streets are deserted. Resurrection in a state of emergency - how does that work?
Visiting Gaza Strip as a Palestinian
DEUTSCHE WELLE
German-Palestinian Nidal wants to return from Berlin to his family in the Gaza Strip. But will Israel allow a Palestinian to pass through the country? And will the Palestinian Hamas government let him enter?
This documentary follows Nidal Bulbul, a naturalized German citizen born in Gaza, on an exciting and emotional journey. He has not seen his parents or his ten siblings for over four years. A former reporter, he set up a successful café in the German capital. He’s made new friends, built a new life. But he always worries about his family back in his old home - a feeling that many who have found shelter from war or persecution in Europe know all to well. When everything points to a new escalation between Israel and Gaza, Nidal drops everything from one day to the next. He sells his café, gives his dog to friends and leaves for Gaza. But there are only two ways to get there: through Egypt or through Israel. Nidal wants to try the Israeli route, but it is unclear whether the Israeli authorities will accept his German passport and let him though the country to Gaza. And even if they do, will the radical Islamist Hamas government allow him in?
Palestinians and Israelis : Between the front
Y-KOLLEKTIV
Nabi Saleh, a Palestinian village in the West Bank. On the hill opposite: the Jewish settlement of Halamish. When the settlers built a fence around the nearby water source in 2010, the Palestinians responded with demonstrations and stone-throwing. Often it is children who are on the front line. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is about religion, politics, culture and above all - home. Reporter Vanessa Schlesier experiences both sides of the conflict in the West Bank.