Liberty Train – Bürger’s Long Journey(2014)

Cycling the Frame(en)

In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle - starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate - accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. As Swinton travels through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment buildings, the Wall is a constant presence.

Berlin Babylon(de)

A documentary focusing on the rebuilding projects in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Berlin 1990(fr)

Some months after the fall of the Berlin wall, during the time of federal elections in Germany in 1990, Chris Marker shot this passionate documentary, reflecting the state of the place and its spirit with remarkable acuity.

The Wall(de)

A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.

Solidarność: How Solidarity Changed Europe(de)

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

New Offenburg(de)

'New Offenburg' is a portrait of the little town of Ste. Genevieve, MO and its descendants of German immigrants from the Black Forest who founded three little villages called Zell, Weingarten and New Offenburg. This is the last generation of people who grew up as foreigners in the US, learning the Badisch dialect as a first language. Now they are Americans, but still keep their second identity, hidden and unknown even for their own children and grandchildren and the generations to come.

Rockin' the Wall(en)

Rock and roll's part in bringing down the Berlin Wall and smashing the Iron Curtain is told from the perspective of rockers who played at the time, on both sides of the Wall, and from survivors of the communist regimes who recall the lifeline that rock music provided them.

Wasteland(de)

A long-term observation of the forgotten former “Gestapo grounds” in Berlin 1986-2013.

November Days(de)

Marcel Ophüls interviews various important Eastern European figures for their thoughts on the reunification of Germany and the fall of Communism.

Disintegration: An Album, a Band, a Generation(de)

Over the course of a fifty-year career, the British band The Cure has released fourteen highly successful studio albums; but it was their 1989 album Disintegration, released during a pivotal year for Europe and the world, that would capture the imagination of so many fans.

Grenze(de)

In February 1986 they received the call of a fatherland that no longer exists: four young GDR citizens on the verge of adulthood see themselves forced, like so many others in East and West Germany, to do their one and a half years of military service. What is special: Their service area is the border system, an anti-imperialist protective wall according to their superiors, death strips and prison bars for a population incapacitated in naked reality. Now, seventeen years later, there is a reunion with the comrades and the old post. This feature film, which was the first in reunified Germany to deal with the inner workings of the GDR border troops, tells of life on the fence, the associated contradictions and some hot phases in the Cold War.

Porsche: Decades of Disruption(en)

Since World War II, Porsche has manufactured cars that have disrupted the automobile industry, like the 911.

Tunnel to Freedom(de)

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.

Scorpions - Forever and a Day(en)

A documentary on the acclaimed rock band Scorpions

When the Water Stops Flowing(en)

Jonathan Stavleu explores, in a stream-of-consciousness video essay, the relationship people have with water and what happens when access to it is taken away. For this work, he examines anecdotal histories he has heard from Estonians, as well as stories from his own family history in the Netherlands, weaving them together into a journal-like narrative.

Der Reichstag(de)

Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.

CIA vs KGB: Battleground Berlin(fr)

For 50 years, Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War. The city at the heart of the intelligence war between the US and the Soviet bloc. Thousands of KGB or CIA, agents observed each other, cogs in the biggest information war in history.

Danube Swabians(sr)

A docudrama about The Danube Swabians, descendants of the youngest German tribes who, moved to the territory of Vojvodina in the 18th century looking for a better life. The story follows their destiny from the very beginnings of their settlement in this region, through their situation during the WW2 and to the present time. The film tells the story of Maria, a girl who is a descendant of The Danube Swabians. She comes to Vojvodina to find the old house of her grandfather, who was exiled after the War. There she meets a local guy named Misha who helps her in her journey. Together they travel throughout Vojvodina meeting witnesses of traumatic post-war events who have survived the communist camps. During their adventure, they discover completely new facts about The Danube Swabians that have been hidden from the public for decades.

Countdown To 1990 : La Réunification de l'Allemagne(fr)

Spell Your Name(en)

he film is based on the testimonies of survivors of the Holocaust that were collected by The Visual Library Archive of USC Shoah Foundation. Director Sergey Bukovsky takes the viewer on a journey of discovery as he and several Ukrainian students absorb the testimony of Ukrainian people who escaped brutal execution and those who rescued friends and neighbors during the Holocaust. A collection of men and women share the details of their experiences, and we are afforded a glimpse of modern-day Ukraine: the ethnic stereotypes that continue to exist and the manner in which Post-Soviet society is dealing with the question of how to memorialize the sites where tens of thousands of Jewish families and others were executed and thrown into mass graves.