Ich will da sein - Jenny Gröllmann(2008)

Partisan(de)

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.

Mauerpark(de)

Dr. Motte and Wladimir Kaminer, but also Schraubermicha, Joe Hatchiban and Ginger Brown - they all use it. The Mauerpark is located on the former death strip in Berlin. The Wall used to separate people from each other, but today the park reunites them. Punks lie next to mothers with children and artists paint next to basketball players. A unique mixture of madness and relaxation comes together here...

Tig(en)

An intimate documentary that follows Tig Notaro, a Los Angeles based comedian, who just days after being diagnosed with invasive stage II breast cancer changed the course of her career with a poignant stand-up set that became legendary overnight. It explores Tig's extraordinary journey as her career ignites and as her life unfolds in grand and unexpected ways, all the while continuing to battle a life-threatening illness and falling in love.

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.

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.

Alfred(de)

Short biographical documentary about the life of Alfred Florstedt and his life as a progressive communist from the Weimar Republic to his death in 1985.

Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony(de)

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.

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)

The Re-Up(en)

A backstage and on-stage look at Nicki Minaj's career during the Pink Friday Tour, festivals, and more.

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

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.

Battleship Berlin(de)

Berlin’s brutalist heritage is under fire. The city’s powerful Charité hospital wants to destroy a brutalist icon of the Cold War era: The infamous former animal research laboratory called the Mäusebunker. Meanwhile, a dedicated group of politicians, preservationists, architects, gallerists, and students fight for an adaptive reuse of these magnificent, uncompromisingly unique structures. Who will win? No matter the outcome, you’re left with the impression that preservation can be brutal.

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.

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.

Rhin et Danube(en)

A documentary produced by the French armed forces which chronicles the way of France’s “1ere armée” in the second world war from the days it first crossed the Rhine in March of 1945, through the liberation of a POW-camp in Swabia, until the forces reached the Danube and the Alps at the end of the war and the day French troops marched in the victory parade in Berlin.

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.

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.

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.