'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.
Survivors tell the story of the Babyn Yar massacre from WWII, where some 100,000 people were massacred by German forces.
The inner world of the great painter Max Ernst is the subject of this film. One of the principal founders of Surrealism, Max Ernst explores the nature of materials and the emotional significance of shapes to combine with his collages and netherworld canvases. The director and Ernst together use the film creatively as a medium to explain the artist's own development.
“Liberty Train – Bürger’s Long Journey” sheds light on the events of the PEACEFUL REVOLUTION of 1989 from different perspectives. It centres on the eyewitnesses who, together with thousands of other people who had fled East Germany, were in the garden of the West German Embassy in Prague on the evening of the 30 September 1989.
Hans Scharoun has built houses which show not only structural substance and aesthetic forms but also how human beings should live in buildings. This depiction can only be imaginary - like reading invisible writing on walls. Bitomsky's film looks at several of Scharoun's buildings.
Since World War II, Porsche has manufactured cars that have disrupted the automobile industry, like the 911.
A documentary on the acclaimed rock band Scorpions
"Looking for men and women aged over 65" was the small ad in a local newspaper in Wuppertal, through which the choreographer Pina Bausch sought senior performers for the remake of her dance spectacle "Kontakthof". 26 amateurs aged from 65 to 72 were selected. They rehearsed for over a year and the premiere took place in the early 2000s in Wuppertal. Lilo Mangelsdorff has accompanied this exceptional project with a camera. The result is a touching film, which focuses on the dancers' stand with their fears and inhibitions, their enthusiasm and passion.
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.
It's a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17 and the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem—there seems to be a security leak.
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.
When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
Jochen Wenzel, a young teacher, married with two kids, one day surprisingly falls in love with a young male colleague, Tom Leuthner and they begin an unusual affair (= "Eine aussergewöhnliche Affäre"). While Ina, Jochen's wife, worries about Jochen's distanced behavior without having a clue of her husband's affair, Jochen and Tom seriously fall for each other. Torn between his family and his new love, Jochen has to make a decision. Written by Smoothhoney
Art critic Keller, a German ex-pat living in London, is confronted by his radical 1960s past when he's asked to assassinate a Chilean murderer who is on a visit to London.
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralised—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the madness, conflict brews between the aristocratic yet ultimately pusillanimous Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand is cynical, defiantly non-conformist and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.
One day in 1984, Todd Bowden, a brilliant high school boy fascinated by the history of Nazism, stumbles across an old man whose appearance resembles that of Kurt Dussander, a wanted Nazi war criminal. A month later, Todd decides to knock on his door.
The German soldier Clemens Forel - determined to be reunited with his beloved family - makes a dramatic escape through bitter cold winters, desolate landscapes, and life threatening ventures from a Siberian labor camp after World War II. 8000 miles and three endless years of uncertainty later, he is finally about to reach his destination... An edge of your seat drama that celebrates the power of the human spirit and the force of will, while inspired and impowered by love.