
Berlin’s Museum Island, the cultural center of the German capital on the Spree river, houses a large number of art pieces from all over the globe, from the Stone Age to the present day. A walk through their great institutions to marvel at their masterpieces.




0.0Volksbühne 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.
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...
6.4The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb is revealed for the first time in color, thanks to colorization of black-and-white newsreel and photographs.
Follow from the amazing restoration process of one of the most cherished and mysterious pieces of History: an Egyptian sarcophagus covered with hieroglyphics (painted wood). With exclusive interviews of experts, art curators and restorators, discover everything about the story of the Isetenkheb coffin of Ancient Egypt dated from around 664-500 BC !
9.5East German film about the history of Red Orchestra, a real life German pro-Soviet spy ring created after the rise of Hitler that turned into a resistance movement led by a leftist Nazi officer, Harro Schulze-Boysen, and Arvid Harnack.
10.0Journey 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.
4.3This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.
6.6A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.
7.3At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented.
0.0A backstage and on-stage look at Nicki Minaj's career during the Pink Friday Tour, festivals, and more.
The film accompanies Jenny Gröllmann, a German actress, during the last two years of her life.
0.0Berlin’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.
3.0Bosom 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.
6.0Documentary 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.
0.0Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.
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.
10.0The Scythians, skilled horsemen and nomadic conquerors, built a feared empire in the vast Eurasian steppe between the 9th and 3rd centuries B.C. All that remains are their graves: the Kourganes. In April 1999, a 2400 year-old Scythian tomb was discovered in Kazakhstan. It contained, among other treasures, twelve horses completely harnessed in gold, suggesting high social status.
7.6What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?
6.7Forensic experts scan Pompeii’s victims to investigate why they didn’t escape the eruption.
6.6Former "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.