Liberty Train – Bürger’s Long Journey

Max Ernst: Journey into the Subconscious(en)

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.

The Wall(de)

A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.

Tunnel to Freedom(de)

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

Porsche: Decades of Disruption(en)

Since World War II, Porsche has manufactured cars that have disrupted the automobile industry, like the 911.

Grenze(de)

In February 1986 they received the call of a fatherland that no longer exists: four young GDR citizens on the verge of adulthood see themselves forced, like so many others in East and West Germany, to do their one and a half years of military service. What is special: Their service area is the border system, an anti-imperialist protective wall according to their superiors, death strips and prison bars for a population incapacitated in naked reality. Now, seventeen years later, there is a reunion with the comrades and the old post. This feature film, which was the first in reunified Germany to deal with the inner workings of the GDR border troops, tells of life on the fence, the associated contradictions and some hot phases in the Cold War.

New Offenburg(de)

'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.

Wasteland(de)

A long-term observation of the forgotten former “Gestapo grounds” in Berlin 1986-2013.

Generation '89 - Growing up in the year of change(en)

The documentary tells the story of the reunification from the perspective of six teenagers from East Germany.

Scorpions - Forever and a Day(en)

A documentary on the acclaimed rock band Scorpions

Wall of Chaos(it)

November Days(de)

Marcel Ophüls interviews various important Eastern European figures for their thoughts on the reunification of Germany and the fall of Communism.

Hasselhoff vs. The Berlin Wall(en)

David Hasselhoff, better known for his roles in “Knight Rider” and “Baywatch” released a song titled, “Looking for Freedom” the year before the Berlin Wall came down. He performed it on top of the Berlin Wall to a million people during the biggest New Year's Eve party Germany had ever seen. Twenty five years later, David revisits the now-reunited capital, investigating what is left of the Wall, and explores what it meant in the context of the Cold War dividing Communism in the East from democracy in the West. Along his journey he meets extraordinary people who dreamt of freedom and risked their lives trying to overcome the dreaded Berlin Wall.

Rockin' the Wall(en)

Rock and roll's part in bringing down the Berlin Wall and smashing the Iron Curtain is told from the perspective of rockers who played at the time, on both sides of the Wall, and from survivors of the communist regimes who recall the lifeline that rock music provided them.

This Ain't California(de)

A retrospective look at the youth cultures born in the German Democratic Republic. A celebration of the lust for life, a contemporary trip into the world of skate, a tale on three heroes and their boards, from their childhood in the seventies, through their teenage rebellion in the eighties and the summer of 1989, when their life changed forever, to 2011.

Danube Swabians(sr)

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.

Rabbit à la Berlin(pl)

The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls. For 28 years Death Zone was their safest home. Full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were closed but happy. When their population grew up to thousands, guards started to remove them. But rabbits survived and stayed there. Unfortunately one day the wall fell down. Rabbits had to abandon comfortable system. They moved to West Berlin and have been living there in a few colonies since then. They are still learning how to live in the free world, same as we - the citizens of Eastern Europe.

Berlin 1990(fr)

Some months after the fall of the Berlin wall, during the time of federal elections in Germany in 1990, Chris Marker shot this passionate documentary, reflecting the state of the place and its spirit with remarkable acuity.

Drei Frauen(de)

The Wall(en)

Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.

Kung Fu: Knallhart(de)