Social & External
The people behind it
Pinkas Braun
Jacques Offenbach
Herbert Bötticher
Ludovic Halévy
Balduin Baas
Berthelier
Hans Peter Korff
Joachim Rake
Sigrid von Richthofen
Norbert Skalden
A portrait of the inventor of the letterpress, who was a key figure in the history of mankind, but also an enthusiastic inventor, a daring businessman, a tenacious troublemaker: the life of Johannes Gutenberg (circa 1400-68).
This Passing Parade series short chronicles the political life of Francisco Madero, who tried to bring democracy and land reform to Mexico.
Biography of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of modern Pakistan is told through flashbacks as his soul tries to find eternal rest. The flashbacks start in 1947 as Jinnah pleads for a separate nation for the Muslim minority, infuriating Lord Mountbatten. Mountbatten then tries to enlist Gandhi & Nehru to persuade Jinnah to stop his efforts. Gandhi sides with Jinnah, which upsets Nehru. However, Jinnah turns down the offer to become prime minister and the film takes another slide back to 1916, which reveals all of the political implications that have occurred.
A journey through the artistic life of the British-American rock band The Pretenders, formed in 1978, and a portrait of its leader, the charismatic singer and songwriter Chrissie Hynde.
The true story of underdog boxer, Chuck Wepner, who gets a shot to fight the champ, Muhammed Ali.
Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus has a dream to find an alternative route to sail to the Indies, by traveling west instead of east, across the unchartered Ocean sea. After failing to find backing from the Portugese, he goes to the Spanish court to ask Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand for help. After surviving a grilling from the Head of the Spanish Inquisition Tomas de Torquemada, he eventually gets the blessing from Queen Isabella and sets sail in three ships to travel into the unknown. Along the way he must deal with sabotage from Portugese spies and mutiny from a rebellious crew.
In 1960, a team of Israeli secret agents is deployed to find Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust, supposedly hidden in Argentina, and get him to Israel to be judged.
An elderly Catherine de Medici reflects back on how the prophecies of Nostradamus accurately predicted the fates of her husband, her three sons and herself.
Both a political narrative and a psychological reflection, this documentary explores the personal journey of a quarry worker’s son from Calvados who rose to become the last great figure of the French Communist Party. It delves into the logic that shaped his path and his lasting impact on France’s history.
This animated short tells the story of Seraphim "Joe" Fortes, one of Vancouver's most beloved citizens. Born in the West Indies, Joe Fortes swam in English Bay for over than 30 years. A self-appointed lifeguard at first, he became so famous that the city of Vancouver finally rewarded him with a salary for doing what he loved best.
To write In Cold Blood (1966), a nonfiction novel that revolutionized world literature, Truman Capote (1924-84) spent five years in Kansas researching the murder of members of the Clutter family and collecting the confidences of its two authors.
Even as a young boy, Beethoven marched to the beat of a different drummer. Trained in the traditional music methods by his father, Beethoven was an accomplished pianist by the age of 12. But he yearned to try new sounds and persevered until audiences heard his music. By his early twenties, this persistent young man performed for Joseph Haydn, who compared him to the great Mozart. Sadly, Beethoven began to lose his hearing, but he threw himself even more deeply into his music, composing "Fur Elise," "Sonata Pathetique" and the dramatic "Fifth Symphony" years later, audience members heard what he could not and leapt to their feet in ecstatic appreciation for such passionate music. His creativity gave the world then, as it does today, music that stirs the soul. The video begins in 1827 with 30,000 people paying tribute to the great Beethoven in Vienna, Austria. Then the video switches to his life as a child...
Kleist's death at Wannsee - a spectacular case that has disturbed and fascinated posterity to this day. The German poet is found shot - what does that mean? What exactly happened on the afternoon of November 21, 1811 at Kleiner Wannsee? What do you know about the woman who died with him?
A revolutionary militant, a thug, an underground writer, a butler to a millionaire in Manhattan. But also a switchblade-waving poet, a lover of beautiful women, a warmonger, a political agitator, and a novelist who wrote of his greatness. Eduard Limonov’s life story is a journey through Russia, America, and Europe during the second half of the 20th century.
The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.
A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.
A biopic on the personal and artistic life of Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André.
The film illustrates individual episodes showing the life of Alexander Pushkin. The script is based on the testimonies of contemporaries, as well as on poems, drawings, and letters of the poet.
A dramatisation that follows Tony Blair's journey from political understudy waiting in the wings of the world arena to accomplished prime minister standing confidently in the spotlight of centre stage. It is a story about relationships, between two powerful men (Blair and Bill Clinton), two powerful couples, and husbands and wives.
Electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse compete to create a sustainable system and market it to the American people.
In 1973, a young gallery assistant goes on a wild adventure behind the scenes as he helps aging genius Salvador Dali prepare for a big show in New York.
A fictional account of one year in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. On Christmas Eve 1877, Elisabeth, once idolized for her beauty, turns 40 and is officially deemed an old woman; she starts trying to maintain her public image.
Young women toiling in a factory are exposed to hazardous material which takes a disastrous toll on their health.
At the turn of the 19th century, Pugilism was the sport of kings and a gifted young boxer fought his way to becoming champion of England.
In 1857, at the height of his fame and fortune, novelist and social critic Charles Dickens meets and falls in love with teenage stage actress Nelly Ternan. As she becomes the focus of his heart and mind, as well as his muse, painful secrecy is the price both must pay.
All Eyez on Me chronicles the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur, including his rise to superstardom as a hip-hop artist, actor, poet and activist, as well as his imprisonment and prolific, controversial time at Death Row Records. Against insurmountable odds, Tupac rose to become a cultural icon whose career and persona both continue to grow long after his passing.
Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.
The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.
A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
Goltzius and the Pelican Company tells the story of Hendrik Goltzius, a late 16th century Dutch printer and engraver of erotic prints. A contemporary of Rembrandt and, indeed, more celebrated during his life, Goltzius seduces the Margrave of Alsace into paying for a printing press to make and publish illustrated books. In return, he promises him an extraordinary book of pictures of illustrating the Old Testament’s biblical stories. Erotic tales of Lot and his daughters, David and Bathsheba, Samson and Deliah and John the Baptist and Salome. To tempt the Margrave further, Goltzius and his printing company will offer to perform dramatisations of these erotic stories for his court.
Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.
Follow the launch of Lamborghini’s career as a manufacturer of tractors, a creator of military vehicles during World War II, and the designer of Lamborghini cars, which he launched in 1963 as the high-end sports car company Automobili Lamborghini.
At the dawn of World War II, a young motorcycle courier in the Austrian army encounters a wounded fox cub and takes it with him to occupied France. The soldier and the fox develop an unlikely bond. Based on the true story of Franz Streitberger, director Adrian Goiginger’s great-grandfather.
The rise of Aretha Franklin’s career from a child singing in her father’s church’s choir to her international superstardom.
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.
This biopic traces Elvis Presley’s life from his impoverished childhood to his meteoric rise to stardom to his triumphant conquering of Las Vegas.
