Germany Christmas Explore

Night and Fog(fr)

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

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.

Shiny_Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord(de)

Max S. reveals how he built a drug empire from his childhood bedroom in this story that inspired the series "How to Sell Drugs Online."

Ich. Immendorff(de)

Documentary film about the painter and sculptor Jörg Immendorff who ranks among the most important German artists. The filmmakers accompanied Immendorff over a period of two years – until his death in May 2007. The artist had been living for nine years knowing that he was terminally ill with ALS. The film shows how Immendorff continued to work with unabated energy and how he tried not to let himself be restrained by his deteriorating health.

A Merry Tudor Christmas with Lucy Worsley(en)

Recreating festivities from Henry VIII's era, Lucy Worsley dresses, eats, drinks, sings and parties like it is 500 years ago - discovering long-lost traditions as well as familiar customs.

Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas(en)

An offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe.

Mr Surgeoner's Higher History Revision(en)

Mr Surgeoner takes the viewer on an enthralling journey through the SQA Higher History course.

Hitlers Traum von Micky Maus - Zeichentrick unterm Hakenkreuz(de)

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.

The Ugliest Car(pl)

The 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.

Dobrá novina, šťastná hodina...(sk)

Cadbury at Christmas(en)

Behind the scenes at the confectionery company's base in Bournville near Birmingham as staff gear up for the festive season, hitting the factory floor to discover how popular treats Roses are made, with the focus on the creation of the hazelnut in caramel. Historians and Cadbury insiders tell the story of how Cadbury first turned Britain on to festive chocolate, while Santa and his team prepare for the rush at Cadbury World.

...a na Zemi pokoj ľudu(sk)

Weihnacht in Schweden(de)

Short documentary by Gunter Otto

Liberators Take Liberties(de)

Helke 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.

Mary Berry's Ultimate Christmas(en)

British home cook Mary Berry prepares the ultimate Christmas feast with all the trimmings; chefs Angela Hartnett and Monica Galetti share favorite festive recipes; Mary and television host Rylan Clark try to convert some children to Brussels sprouts.

Lucy Worsley's Christmas Carol Odyssey(en)

Lucy Worsley reveals the surprising stories behind our favourite Christmas carols. From pagan rituals to religious conflicts, French dances and the First World War, carols reflect our history.

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

Schwabing - Meine nie verblasste Liebe(de)

Germany in Autumn(de)

The 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.

Der grosse Kanton(de)

Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?