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Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

It Is Not the Brazilian Homosexuals Who Are Perverse, But the Situation in Which They Live

Two queer Brazilians go skinny dipping in a lake where they talk about love, sex, colonialism and migration, on a pandemic summer afternoon in Berlin.

Thirty Years with the Whip

A portrait of Rosa von Praunheim's neighbor, who worked for decades as a professional dominatrix in Berlin's Wilmersdorf district. While the real Lady MacLaine reflects authentically and wittily on her life and work, her life is retold in dramatized scenes.

The Unpredictable Factor

In today's climate debate, there is only one factor that cannot be calculated in climate models - humans. How can we nevertheless understand our role in the climate system and manage the crisis? Climate change is a complex global problem. Increasingly extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and more difficult living conditions - including for us humans - are already the order of the day. Global society has never faced such a complex challenge. For young people in particular, the frightening climate scenarios will be a reality in the future. For the global south, it is already today. To overcome this crisis, different perspectives are needed. "THE UNPREDICTABLE FACTOR" goes back to the origins of the German environmental movement, accompanies today's activists in the Rhineland in their fight against the coal industry and gives a voice to scientists from climate research, ethnology and psychology.

Berlin under Construction

Documentary short about the rebuilding of Berlin in 1946 from a Soviet perspective, showcasing the social changes that have taken place since the fall of Hitler and of Jews working side-by-side with non-Jewish counterparts.

Tunnel to Freedom

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

Kalter Krieg der Konzerte - Wie Bruce Springsteen den Osten rockte

Berlin, summer 1988: While Michael Jackson and Pink Floyd perform in the West, East Berliners can look forward to Bruce Springsteen, Depeche Mode and James Brown. The documentary reveals how the organizers enforced the concerts with the state authorities. On the anniversary of the fall of the Wall.

Robotron - High Tech made in GDR

In a world divided by the Iron Curtain, East Germany sought to carve its niche in the technological race. Enter "Robotron" - a name that seamlessly blended "robot" and "electronics." This wasn't just a brand; it was an ambitious answer to the West's technological advancements, a testament to the GDR’s drive to match, if not surpass, Western innovation. Drawing inspiration from the corporate giants of the West, the GDR‘s government merged various businesses to form this tech behemoth. With 16 major hubs in Central Germany alone, it was clear: "Robotron" was to be the DDR's technological crown jewel. But what was the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the GDR's ruling party, envisioning with this grand venture? How did "Robotron" navigate the challenges of operating within a socialist planned economy, while striving for global excellence? And as it grew to dominate East Germany's tech landscape, why did it always seem to be one step behind the leading global tech powers?

Party auf dem Todesstreifen - Soundtrack der Wende

Berliner Stadtbahnbilder

Documentation on the Berlin S-Bahn, which threatened to fall into oblivion as a result of the division of the city.

100 Years of the UFA

The intricate history of UFA, a film production company founded in 1917 that has survived the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, the Adenauer era and the many and tumultuous events of contemporary Germany, and has always been the epicenter of the German film industry.

Nick Cave: Stranger in a Strange Land

Documentary made for Dutch television about Nick Cave in Berlin in 1987.

Peter Eisenman: Building Germany's Holocaust Memorial

This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.

Tobby

Fictional film with documentary elements about a jazz musician in Berlin.

Central Airport THF

A documentary about Berlin's former airport Tempelhof. A film about Departures and Arrivals. And about those Berliners who come here to escape from their daily lives and those refugees who came here to finally arrive somewhere.

Partisan

Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz 1992-2017. The end of the GDR gave rise to new artistic freedoms in reunited Berlin. Shortly after the fall of the Wall, rebel director Frank Castorf was appointed artistic director of the Volksbühne. His way of working altered the public’s perception of this theater. The chronological history of the Castorf era between 1992 and 2017 is told here in excerpts from the productions and in a series of conversations conducted on the long sofa in the theater's foyer.

The First World War

Produced by the Fox Movietone News arm of Fox Film Corporation and based on the book by Lawrence Stallings, this expanded newsreel, using stock-and-archive footage, tells the story of World War I from inception to conclusion. Alternating with scenes of trench warfare and intimate glimpses of European royalty at home, and scenes of conflict at sea combined with sequences of films from the secret archives of many of the involved nations.

Becoming Black

In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews with Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the astonishing strategies of denial her parents, striving for normality, developed following her birth. What sounds like fieldwork about social dislocation becomes an autobiographical essay film and a reflection on themes such as identity, social norms and family ties, viewed from a very personal perspective.

Schleimkeim - Otze und die DDR von unten

A punk documentary about the life and death of the GDR punk Dieter "Otze" Ehrlich and his band Schleimkeim aus dem Schweinestall. With the fall of the Wall, Otze loses not only his enemy images, but also his life at the price of freedom.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

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.

The Man Between

A British woman on a visit to post-war Berlin is caught up in an espionage ring smuggling secrets into and out of the Eastern Bloc.

Who Am I

Benjamin, a young German computer whiz, is invited to join a subversive hacker group that wants to be noticed on the world's stage.

Berlin Falling

Frank left his life as a soldier behind and wants to rebuild his life in Brandenburg. He is on his way to meet his daughter, Lily, after a long time of not seeing her. As he stops at a gas station he meets Andreas, who needs a ride to Berlin. Reluctantly, Frank agrees to take Andreas with him - unaware of the consequences.

The Killer

Zee is a feared contract killer known as "the Queen of the Dead," but when she refuses to murder a young blind woman, she finds herself hunted both by criminal colleagues and a determined police detective.

Shadow Dancer

In 1990s Belfast, a woman is forced to betray all she believes in for the sake of her son.

Torn Curtain

During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.

Octopussy

James Bond is sent to investigate after a fellow “00” agent is found dead with a priceless Indian Fabergé egg. Bond follows the mystery and uncovers a smuggling scandal and a Russian General who wants to provoke a new World War.

Looking for Richard

Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."

Icefall

A young Indigenous game warden arrests an infamous poacher only to discover that the poacher knows the location of a plane carrying millions of dollars that has crashed in a frozen lake. When a group of criminals and dirty cops are alerted to the poacher’s whereabouts, the warden and the poacher team up to fight back and escape across the treacherous lake before the ice melts.

John Candy: I Like Me

Those who knew iconic funnyman John Candy best share his story, in their own words, through never-before-seen archival footage, imagery, and interviews.

God Is a Bullet

Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.

Hanna

Raised by her father, an ex-CIA agent, in the wilds of Finland, Hanna's upbringing has been geared to making her the perfect assassin. Sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys across Europe, eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative. As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence.

Bad Sister

As a top student at St. Adeline's Catholic Boarding School, Zoe senses that something is not quite right about the school's new nun-- a sense proven to be true when it is revealed the "good' nun is an imposter with a fatal attraction to Zoe's brother.

The Commuter

A businessman, on his daily commute home, gets unwittingly caught up in a criminal conspiracy that threatens not only his life but the lives of those around him.

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Exterritorial

When her son vanishes inside a US consulate, ex-special forces soldier Sara does everything in her power to find him — and uncovers a dark conspiracy.

Funeral in Berlin

Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.

In the Shadow of the Moon

In 1988, Philadelphia police officer Thomas "Locke" Lockhart, hungry to become a detective, begins tracking a serial killer whose crimes defy scientific explanation. When the killer mysteriously resurfaces nine years later, Locke's obsession with finding the truth threatens to destroy his career, his family, and possibly his sanity.

Sidney

This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.