
This absolutely top-notch documentary by Robert Fischer is a fascinating look back at not just the film in question, but Fassbinder's meteoric career which ended all too soon with his untimely death. Archival footage of Fassbinder is utilized (including several fascinating snippets culled from interviews he did at the disastrous Cannes premiere of Despair), as well as many others involved in the film and its release. Even if you're not a particular fan of Despair, or even in fact of Fassbinder, this is stellar documentary film making and is an intriguing look at one of the most enigmatic masters of the New German Cinema.

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This absolutely top-notch documentary by Robert Fischer is a fascinating look back at not just the film in question, but Fassbinder's meteoric career which ended all too soon with his untimely death. Archival footage of Fassbinder is utilized (including several fascinating snippets culled from interviews he did at the disastrous Cannes premiere of Despair), as well as many others involved in the film and its release. Even if you're not a particular fan of Despair, or even in fact of Fassbinder, this is stellar documentary film making and is an intriguing look at one of the most enigmatic masters of the New German Cinema.
2011-01-01
6.5
Three years after the death of her beloved child, Elouise, Mara still feels her presence when she sits on the butterfly bedding in front of the jar with her ashes in it. Mara arranges a twelfth birthday party for Elouise, further alienating her from her husband, Richter, and remaining daughter, Hannah. Although Mara eventually vacates Elouise's room at the insistence of her husband, she does find a way to stay close to Elouise. Before long, however, Hannah discovers her mother's secret.
6.5Lina Inverse and Naga the White Serpent are back! What begins as a routine bandit-stomping turns into the adventure of a lifetime involving magical golems, an ancient Elven weapon and even someone bent on destroying the world. It's a predicament only Lina and Naga could get themselves in to.
8.2Posing as hunters, a group of terrorists are in search of $100 million that was stolen and lost in a plane crash en route from Afghanistan.
5.6Darkman and Durant return and they hate each other as much as ever. This time, Durant has plans to take over the city's drug trade using high-tech weaponry. Darkman must step in and try to stop Durant once and for all.
5.2A few years ago, a mysterious serial-killer caused panic on Crippen High School. The killer was never caught. A movie company, Cosmic Pictures, has decided to make a feature movie about these events - on location, at the now abandoned school. Since members of cast and crew disappear without a trace, it seems as if history is repeating itself...
6.7Set in the African savannah, the film follows Kion as he assembles the members of the 'Lion Guard'. Throughout the film, the diverse team of young animals will learn how to utilize each of their unique abilities to solve problems and accomplish tasks to maintain balance within the Circle of Life, while also introducing viewers to the vast array of animals that populate the prodigious African landscape.
6.2As a result of a successful conspiracy against Menshikov, Peter II is prematurely recognized as an adult and is in a hurry to be crowned in Moscow. The Dolgoruky brothers gather for this celebration. There were eight of them - all-powerful and influential representatives of the ancient Rurikovich family - and among them the beautiful Ekaterina, the daughter of the huntsman Alexei.
6.6An oil platform dramatically goes down on the Norwegian coast, and researchers try to find out what happened when they realize this is just the start of something even more serious.
5.8Two college freshmen who decided to stick with their high school sweethearts have to pull a 'Turkey Dump' and break up with them over 'Drunksgiving' the one chaotic night before Thanksgiving in their hometown that puts their codependent friendship to the test.
5.9Rosa's life, a highly valued professional, is turned upside down when her grandfather Marcelino dies.
6.1Fifteen years after his father's experiments with matter transmission fail, Philippe Delambre and his uncle François attempt to create a matter transmission device on their own. However, their experiments have disastrous results, turning Philippe into a horrible half-man, half-fly creature.
7.4A girl wakes up in a huge secret laboratory, then accidentally meets another girl who is trying to protect her house from a gang. The mystery girl overthrows the gang with her unexpected powers, and laboratory staff set out to find her.
5.8Eccentric millionaire Olivia sends her half sister Agatha, and a group of old acquaintances, a mysterious invitation for a weekend on her yacht, where they will discover the true motive behind this invitation: the celebration of… a murder?
7.2Ran’s secret past revealed! Ten years ago, something happened between her mom and dad. Now, plagued by nightmares, Ran is starting to remember… Meanwhile, a murderous card dealer breaks out of jail to seek revenge. His target: Ran’s father. Can Conan stop him in time and save his girlfriend’s family?
6.9After the Combiner Wars ended, Cybertron started to be rebuilt. However, an undead Starscream has been reincarnated as Trypticon, wreaking havoc around him. To combat this menace, Windblade gathers up a ragtag team of Transformers, including Optimus Prime and Megatron, to resurrect an ancient ally. And while some may be forever changed by the events, others may not emerge with their sparks intact.
5.9Realizing that she cannot take down Fisk alone, Sayen teams up with an underground resistance group with a plan to expose and end Fisk's unchecked plundering once and for all.
7.0A new member has joined Eli and the Shane Gang! Junjie, once the protector of the Eastern Caverns, is a master of the slugslinging art of Slug Fu! But even with the power of five slingers, the Shane Gang find themselves in over their heads as they race across The 99 Caverns in search of the Legendary Elemental Slugs. The five Elementals are ancient slugs of great power, and the forbearers of all slugs found in SlugTerra today. In the wrong hands, they could bring Slugterra to the brink of destruction. So when an evil alliance starts hunting down the Elementals, Eli and his friends — old and new — take off in pursuit of the greatest threat their world has ever faced!
5.8Ugo Fantozzi has been ejected from Heaven and is sent back to Earth for a short period of time until the staff in Heaven can get Fantozzi a place there. Fantozzi goes through a variety of unfortunate experiences, such as rescuing his retro punk granddaughter Uga, and having to pay a vast telephone bill due to frequent chat line conversations. He ends up getting arrested instead of his ex-boss, who was originally charged with corruption. Just as he is about to enjoy the World Cup Final with Italy, he is called back into Heaven. Can he find peace once again?
5.9After a family tragedy, Chuck Wilson hopes to start a new life in Ashland Falls with his wife Maria and little sister Elizabeth, but he quickly discovers that the town has a dark history of being haunted by a ghostly woman who drives residents to suicide.
7.1The true story of Kurt Warner, who went from a stockboy at a grocery store to a two-time NFL MVP, Super Bowl champion, and Hall of Fame quarterback.
6.6French documentarist Sonia Kronlund follows actor and director Salim Shaheen, an Afghan movie star who produced more than 110 low-budget movies in a country devastated by war.
6.2The film does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two-month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped and later murdered by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the original leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.
6.7Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.
6.0The youngest protagonist of the documentary is Wartburg, an automobile over 50 years of age. The car is still on the road, driven by Bogdan, a 70-year-old who is taking his mother to visit the German factory where she was forced to work during WWII. In this road movie which takes place between Majdanpek and Germany, the trip becomes a journey into the past, retracing memories from the war and revealing a unique relationship between an old son and his elderly mother.
8.0Home is where we grow up or settle permanently. And this home is always shaped by nature. Today, we human beings change and shape this more than any law of nature. HEIMAT NATUR is a visually stunning journey through the nature of our homeland, from the peaks of the Alps to the coasts and the depths of the North and Baltic Seas. In between is a cinematic foray through steaming forests, shimmering moors, over rose-blossoming heaths and the colorful cultural landscape around our villages and towns. In extraordinary images this nature is shown from its most beautiful side, examining the state of the native habitats. Slow-motion and time-lapse photography as well as intimate shots of familiar and unfamiliar species, some filmed for the first time, making the film a cinematic nature experience for the whole family.
Uli Köhler and Nick Golücke have visited the protagonists of the 1990 World Cup 20 years after their championship win and looked back together. The Writers Nick Golücke and Uli Köhler have, 20 years after World Cup triumph of the German national soccer team in Rome in 1990, visited the protagonists of back then once again and indulge with them together in memories.
4.0Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.
6.0How could a German Wehrmacht soldier become a celebrated soccer idol of the Britons in the post-war period? The documentary by Radio Bremen shows the moving life story of the soccer star of the 1950s in a torn Europe and how an enemy became a friend. With his legendary appearance in the English Cup Final 1956, in which he played until the end despite a broken neck, Bert Trautmann set up a memorial for himself in the history of sport. Already in the same year, he is chosen as England’s footballer of the year, and by his club Manchester City even as best player of all times. Bernhard “Bert” Trautmann is one of the most popular and best-known soccer players in England.
4.5The AfD, founded in 2013, is a right-wing party that has become increasingly radicalized in recent years. To illustrate this, only those who enthusiastically joined the party in its early years are heard. They describe what they looked for and found in the party, but also how and why they left, disillusioned and frightened by the AfD's developments. How did they experience the party's radicalization process? How did friends and family react? When and why did they decide to turn their back on the party? How difficult was the exit process? The documentary provides an illuminating inside view of this party, which has been driving the established parties and the political establishment ahead of it for over ten years, gives viewers a unique look into the AfD's chronicle and world of thought and is at the same time a film about the mechanisms of political radicalization.
The order comes in the summer of 1941 from propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels himself: The best animators are summoned to Berlin. Their task: Producing feature-length cartoons in ‘Disney-Quality’ with the newly founded ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH’. To get trained, the Disney movie “Snow White” is re-traced frame by frame. After the final victory, one new feature-length production of quality shall be released every year from 1947 onwards. – that is the plan. Only in 1943, the first production is completed: “Armer Hansi” a 17-minute-long colour movie, realized with the effortful Multiplane-technology. The second film by the ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm’ is only completed in 1946 – by DEFA. In the territories occupied by Germany, cartoons are produced as well, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes propagandistic ones. With excerpts from animated movies, life-action film documents, and witness reports by contemporaries, this documentary draws a picture of the cartoon production in the third Reich.
0.0This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.
3.5A documentary following the day life of fans in Brazil on July 13, 2014: the day when Germany and Argentina met up in the finals of FIFA World Cup.
5.3The rut of Dalmatian hinterland changes with the arrival of returning guest workers, and things they bring along: cars, radios and new way of life.
8.0Christof 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.
0.0Luis Bunuel, the father of cinematic Surrealism, made his film debut with 'Un Chien Andalou' in 1929 working closely with Salvador Dali. Considered one of the finest and controversial filmmakers with, 'L’Age d’Or' (1930), attacking the church and the middle classes. He won many awards including Best Director at Cannes for 'Los Olvidados' (1950), and the coveted Palme d’Or for 'Viridiana' (1961), which had been banned in his native Spain. His career moved to France with 'The Diary of a Chambermaid' with major stars such as Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve.
May 27th, 1971 was a rainy day. In the small town Radevormwald, the world seems to be still in order. But on this day, 46 people die in a train crash, amongst them 41 schoolchildren. Since then, Radevormwald has been connected with one of the worst railway catastrophes of Germany. The touching documentary reconstructs the tragedy and shows how much the event still influences the life in the town until today.
0.0Traffic on the B61 road, which connects Rotterdam to Warsaw and cuts through the German spa town of Bad Oeynhausen, is permanently gridlocked. The promised cure is a bypass whose construction is documented for a period of eight years: the efforts of the mayor, police, fire brigade and construction companies, the delays in the construction of the northern bypass and above all the reactions of the affected residents.
6.8A documentary of the German national soccer team’s 2006 World Cup experience that changed the face of modern Germany.
8.2Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.