The Hell of Ueckermünde

This report was broadcast on ARD in 1993. In 43 minutes, the development of psychiatry "in the third year after reunification" is shown using two institutions in the new federal states as examples. A touchstone for all of psychiatry and disability care to this day. The film shows a shocking way in which disabled people are treated. The commentary uses the perspective of those affected. 50 years after euthanasia in Germany, this documentary reminds us of this once again.

Match 64: The Maracanã

A documentary following the day life of fans in Brazil on July 13, 2014: the day when Germany and Argentina met up in the finals of FIFA World Cup.

Der grosse Kanton

Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?

Wir waren in der AfD - Aussteiger berichten

The AfD, founded in 2013, is a right-wing party that has become increasingly radicalized in recent years. To illustrate this, only those who enthusiastically joined the party in its early years are heard. They describe what they looked for and found in the party, but also how and why they left, disillusioned and frightened by the AfD's developments. How did they experience the party's radicalization process? How did friends and family react? When and why did they decide to turn their back on the party? How difficult was the exit process? The documentary provides an illuminating inside view of this party, which has been driving the established parties and the political establishment ahead of it for over ten years, gives viewers a unique look into the AfD's chronicle and world of thought and is at the same time a film about the mechanisms of political radicalization.

Hallo, Munich

The rut of Dalmatian hinterland changes with the arrival of returning guest workers, and things they bring along: cars, radios and new way of life.

Pride & Attitude

The viewpoints of women from a country that no longer exists preserved on low-band U-matic tape. GDR-FRG. Courageous, self-confident and emancipated: female industry workers talk about gaining autonomy.

Time Loops - A Conversation with Christa Wolf

Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.

Counter Shot: Departure of the Filmmakers

Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.

Germany: A Summer's Fairytale

A documentary of the German national soccer team’s 2006 World Cup experience that changed the face of modern Germany.

Breath of Freedom

In World War II. African-American GIs liberate Germany from Nazi rule while racism prevailed in their own army and home country. Returning home they continue fighting for their own rights in the civil rights movement.

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.

Night and Fog

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Vom Nazi zum englischen Fußballidol - Torwartlegende Bert Trautmann

How could a German Wehrmacht soldier become a celebrated soccer idol of the Britons in the post-war period? The documentary by Radio Bremen shows the moving life story of the soccer star of the 1950s in a torn Europe and how an enemy became a friend. With his legendary appearance in the English Cup Final 1956, in which he played until the end despite a broken neck, Bert Trautmann set up a memorial for himself in the history of sport. Already in the same year, he is chosen as England’s footballer of the year, and by his club Manchester City even as best player of all times. Bernhard “Bert” Trautmann is one of the most popular and best-known soccer players in England.

Italia '90

Uli Köhler and Nick Golücke have visited the protagonists of the 1990 World Cup 20 years after their championship win and looked back together. The Writers Nick Golücke and Uli Köhler have, 20 years after World Cup triumph of the German national soccer team in Rome in 1990, visited the protagonists of back then once again and indulge with them together in memories.

Hitlers Traum von Micky Maus - Zeichentrick unterm Hakenkreuz

The order comes in the summer of 1941 from propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels himself: The best animators are summoned to Berlin. Their task: Producing feature-length cartoons in ‘Disney-Quality’ with the newly founded ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH’. To get trained, the Disney movie “Snow White” is re-traced frame by frame. After the final victory, one new feature-length production of quality shall be released every year from 1947 onwards. – that is the plan. Only in 1943, the first production is completed: “Armer Hansi” a 17-minute-long colour movie, realized with the effortful Multiplane-technology. The second film by the ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm’ is only completed in 1946 – by DEFA. In the territories occupied by Germany, cartoons are produced as well, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes propagandistic ones. With excerpts from animated movies, life-action film documents, and witness reports by contemporaries, this documentary draws a picture of the cartoon production in the third Reich.

Germany in Autumn

The film does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two-month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped and later murdered by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the original leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.

Liberators Take Liberties

Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.

Shiny_Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord

Max S. reveals how he built a drug empire from his childhood bedroom in this story that inspired the series "How to Sell Drugs Online."

Schabowskis Zettel - Die Nacht, als die Mauer fiel

The Pity of War

Professor Niall Ferguson argues that Britain's decision to enter the First World War was a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide.