At August 23 and 24, 2025, the legendary summer cinema will once again take place at Gut Bennigsen. As always, we look forward to new independent releases, curious movie gems and wild visual power on the big screen.

NO OTHER LAND

Gut Bennigsen invites you to a special movie night and shows the award-winning documentary NO OTHER LAND. The film tells the story of Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank, who has been documenting his community’s struggle against forced displacement since he was a child. For more than half a decade, he accompanies how houses are destroyed, families displaced and entire villages erased – and thus captures on film one of the largest acts of forced displacement in the occupied West Bank.

Basel meets the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. Despite their unequal realities – Basel lives under military occupation, Yuval in freedom – an extraordinary alliance is formed. Together with Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal, they have created this film: as an act of creative resistance, as a call for equality and justice.

NO OTHER LAND is a documentary made during one of the darkest times in the region, yet it carries a universal message: the courage to stand up against injustice and seek new ways of living together. The film has been acclaimed at festivals around the world and won several awards, including at the Berlinale 2024, where it won both the Best Documentary Award and the Panorama Audience Award.

With its haunting visual language and emotional depth, NO OTHER LAND not only provides insights into a threatened world, but also poses fundamental questions about solidarity, resistance and hope.

→ Trailer NO OTHER LAND

MISERICORDIA – A macabre village mystery by Alain Guiraudie

Gut Bennigsen invites you to an extraordinary evening at the cinema with MISERICORDIA, the latest work by French director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake). The film premiered in Cannes in May 2024 and won over critics worldwide.

Plot
Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) returns to his remote home village in the south of France to say goodbye to his mentor, the village baker. At the invitation of the widow Martine (Catherine Frot), he stays and encounters an atmosphere haunted by unspoken longings and latent violence. Between him, Martine’s son Vincent and the enigmatic village priest, a web of desire, guilt and moral distortion unfolds – culminating in a murder.

Style & subject matter
Guiraudie combines thriller elements with absurd, often grotesque humor. The rural backdrop reinforces the intense, almost oppressive build-up of tension. Cinematographer Claire Mathon creates dreamlike, autumnal images that contribute to an idiosyncratic aesthetic. Themes such as desire, moral ambivalence and the facades of convention take center stage – wrapped up in a bitter grotesque that also invites a smile.

Reception & Awards
The film received international recognition:

• Louis Delluc Award 2024 for Best French Film
• 1st place at “Cahiers du cinéma” 2024
• Awarded the “Golden Spike” and Best Screenplay Award at the Valladolid Festival
• Numerous César nominations, including Best Film, Best Director, Acting and Cinematography
• Critical response: Rotten Tomatoes 95-96%, Metacritic scale 83 – “universal acclaim”

Summary
MISERICORDIA is an unconventional and stylistically aware genre film – at once perceptive, disturbing and extremely human. Guiraudie sends his audience into a world in which the countryside becomes a stage for existential questions. It is a thought-provoking – and lasting – film.

→ Trailer MISERICORDIA