Ich will da sein - Jenny Gröllmann(2008)

Back to Normandy(en)

A filmmaker returns to Normandy thirty years after a working on a movie based on a local homicide and tries to find the actors who worked on the project.

Opa sein Berlin(de)

Rare documentary footage from around 1900 depicts the mood of life in Berlin at the turn of the century.

Die Randgemeinschaft(de)

Shine a Light(en)

Martin Scorsese’s electrifying concert documentary captures The Rolling Stones live at New York’s Beacon Theatre during their A Bigger Bang tour. Filmed over two nights in 2006 with an all-star team of cinematographers, the film combines dynamic performances with archival footage and rare glimpses behind the scenes, offering a vibrant portrait of the band’s enduring energy and legacy.

I Am My Own Woman(de)

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

Dani Lary : Le magicien de l'impossible !(fr)

Our Children(de)

From an official perspective, marginal youth culture did not exist in East Germany. The topic of subcultures was taboo in the GDR, and groups such as goths, skinheads, anti-skins, punks and neo-Nazis were dismissed as social deviations promoted by western countries. Director Roland Steiner had access to such young East Germans in the late 1980s. Over the course of four years, he brought them before the camera in an attempt to understand what drew them to these groups.

Becoming Black(de)

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.

Queens Don’t Cry(de)

Bosom buddies BeV StroganoV, Ovo Maltine, Ichgola Androgyn and Tima die Göttliche are four Berlin drag queens who met in the mid 1980s. These four queens became Germany’s most popular drag performers and have been busy fertilizing the German cultural scene. Besides being performers, they are also political activists – in AIDS awareness, anti-gay violence, the sex workers movement and the struggle against the extreme right and racism. The film tells their story.

Cows Knocked Up by Fog(de)

Catchy mix of farce and documentary. Portrait of a Berlin theatre company made up entirely of the homeless, alcoholics and junks. They call themselves ‘rats’ and take the film over to have a party.

Vivement Truffaut(fr)

A tribute to the late, great French director Francois Truffaut, this documentary was undoubtedly named after his last movie, Vivement Dimanche!, released in 1983. Included in this overview of Truffaut's contribution to filmmaking are clips from 14 of his movies arranged according to the themes he favored. These include childhood, literature, the cinema itself, romance, marriage, and death.

Le Club: Claude Jade(fr)

White Man with Black Bread(de)

Christof Wackernagel, best known in Germany as an actor and former member of the Red Army Faction ("RAF") lives in Mali. In his compelling portrait, Jonas Grosch shows a man who simply cannot stand still if he senses injustice. The courage to stand up for one’s beliefs coupled with vanity? However one chooses to look at it, it is easy to imagine what made him connect with the "RAF". With his irrepressible will for freedom, Christof Wackernagel gets entangled in the horrors of day-to-day life in Africa.

Omnibus: François Truffaut(en)

100 Years of the UFA(de)

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.

Cirque du Soleil: Quidam(en)

A young girl has already seen everything there is to see and her world has lost all meaning. Her anger shatters her world and she finds herself in the universe of QUIDAM, where she is joined by a playful companion, as well as another mysterious character who attempts to seduce her with the marvelous, the unsettling and the terrifying.

Symphonie einer Weltstadt(de)

Documentary about the life in Berlin in 1941. The planned premier was stopped by the national party due to the damages and painful changes to the city that soon followed. It thus premiered in 1950.

Heimatkunde(de)

Former "Titanic" satire magazine editor Martin Sonneborn takes an undercover trip around Berlin and discovers the East-German mentality and what is left of the socialist German Democratic Republic.

Schabowskis Zettel - Die Nacht, als die Mauer fiel(de)

In the Family(en)

At 31, filmmaker Joanna Rudnick faces an impossible decision: remove her breasts and ovaries or risk incredible odds of developing cancer. Armed with a genetic test result that leaves her vulnerable and confused, she balances dreams of having her own children with the unnerving reality that she is risking her life by holding on to her fertility.