

Benedikt Sedlmeyer
Richard Bratfisch
Rita Bratfisch
Peter Brinkmann
Harald Jäger

2009-11-02
7
8.3Scholars debate whether the Star of Bethlehem is a legend created by the early church or a miracle that marked the advent of Christ. Is it possible that the star was a real, astronomical event? From Producer Stephen McEveety (The Passion of the Christ) comes an amazing documentary on the Star of Bethlehem.
6.3The powerful evil wizard Tarabas gets knowledge about a prophecy that a king's child will defeat him. So he sends out his army of dead soldiers to kidnap all royal children. When the soldiers attack Fantaghiro's castle to steal the babies of her sisters, the battle seems to be lost until she discovers the secret to defeat the solders but by doing that she loses Romualdo. Now Fantaghiro must find the evil wizard Tarabas and convince him to break the spell and bring back Romualdo.
7.3Two introverted people find out by pure chance that they share the same dream every night. They are puzzled, incredulous, a bit frightened. As they hesitantly accept this strange coincidence, they try to recreate in broad daylight what happens in their dream.
6.6Holidaymakers arriving in a Club Med camp on the Ivory Coast are determined to forget their everyday problems and emotional disappointments. Games, competitions, outings, bathing and sunburn accompany a continual succession of casual affairs.
6.9Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.
5.5A hard-working small business owner and his two associates travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives. But what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable – and unimaginable – way, including unplanned stops at a massive sex fetish event and a global economic summit.
4.3Rocky and Bullwinkle have been living off the finances made from the reruns of their cartoon show. Boris and Natasha somehow manage to crossover into reality and team up with Fearless Leader, an evil criminal turned media mogul with some evil plans up his sleeve. Rocky and Bullwinkle must stop the three of them before they wreak havoc.
6.8Holden and Banky are comic book artists. Everything is going good for them until they meet Alyssa, also a comic book artist. Holden falls for her, but his hopes are crushed when he finds out she's a lesbian.
7.6The story of an impossible love between a woman named Fred and a transgender woman named Laurence who reveals her inner desire to become her true self.
7.2Small town in Italy, end of the 19th century. Luciano, a drunk, doesn't fit in the town. Rebelion against authority and a forbidden love makes him to commit a crime accidentally. To pay for his crime, he is forced into exile on the most remote island in the world, Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. The hunt for the shipwreck treasure hidden on the island becomes his opportunity for redemption.
7.3In Memphis, Tennessee, over the course of a single night, the Arcade Hotel, run by an eccentric night clerk and a clueless bellboy, is visited by a young Japanese couple traveling in search of the roots of rock; an Italian woman in mourning who stumbles upon a fleeing charlatan girl; and a comical trio of accidental thieves looking for a place to hide.
5.7Mariano has been married for 10 years with Miranda, a woman way out of his league. Their small-town life is disrupted by womanizing photographer Andrea, who — struck by her good looks — offers Miranda a one-time modelling job. Albeit hesitant, the couple eventually accepts his invitation to the Seychelles...
7.2Gretta, a budding songwriter, finds herself alone after her boyfriend Dave ditches her. Her life gains purpose when Dan, a record label executive, notices her talent.
7.8Jerry, a small-town Minnesota car salesman is bursting at the seams with debt... but he's got a plan. He's going to hire two thugs to kidnap his wife in a scheme to collect a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. It's going to be a snap and nobody's going to get hurt... until people start dying. Enter Police Chief Marge, a coffee-drinking, parka-wearing - and extremely pregnant - investigator who'll stop at nothing to get her man. And if you think her small-time investigative skills will give the crooks a run for their ransom... you betcha!
7.6The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
6.8In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex is assaulted by something no one could believe—a whale of mammoth size and will, and an almost human sense of vengeance.
7.3As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.
7.2A fairy godmother helps a princess disguise herself so she won't have to marry her father.
6.5Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one morning when overwhelmed Jack is left unexpectedly with Maggie and forgets that Melanie was to take her to school. As a result, both children miss their school field trip and are stuck with the parents. The two adults project their negative stereotypes of ex-spouses on each other, but end up needing to rely on each other to watch the children as each must save his job. Humor is added by Sammy's propensity for lodging objects in his nose and Maggie's tendency to wander.
5.7Summer, New York City. A college girl falls hard for a guy she just met. After a night of partying goes wrong, she goes to wild extremes to get him back.
7.8The cast of Friends reunites for a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of the hit series, an unforgettable evening filled with iconic memories, uncontrollable laughter, happy tears, and special guests.
0.0The mining industry, which always had been “sponsor” and “financier” of the soccer clubs in the Ruhr valley during the post-war period, doesn’t exist anymore nowadays in that form. Many of the once glorious clubs which dominated German soccer until the 1970s faded into obscurity without financial backers. The documentary “Im Westen ging die Sonne auf" ("The sun had risen in the west“) shows the history of the “Revierfußball” from after the second World War until the decline of the mining industry and recalls legendary players and forgotten clubs. The film shows especially how deeply rooted the sport was back then in the entire lifestyle of the Ruhr area - in private life as well as in society - and how structural change also left clearly visible marks in sports. With pictures from back then, interviews with contemporary witnesses, and footage of original locations nowadays, a contemporary document of German post-war history, by taking the example of soccer, has been created.
6.0The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.
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.
The film accompanies Jenny Gröllmann, a German actress, during the last two years of her life.
0.0Documentary 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.
0.0This movie charts the three most important questions regarding birth: 1. What makes a safe birth? 2. What disrupts a birth? 3. What do birth interventions mean for mother and baby, how the birth develops and even society at large?
7.0The year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of one on the most important events in Western civilization: the birth of an idea that continues to shape the life of every American today. In 1517, power was in the hands of the few, thought was controlled by the chosen, and common people lived lives without hope. On October 31 of that year, a penniless monk named Martin Luther sparked the revolution that would change everything. He had no army. In fact, he preached nonviolence so powerfully that — 400 years later — Michael King would change his name to Martin Luther King to show solidarity with the original movement. This movement, the Protestant Reformation, changed Western culture at its core, sparking the drive toward individualism, freedom of religion, women's rights, separation of church and state, and even free public education. Without the Reformation, there would have been no pilgrims, no Puritans, and no America in the way we know it.
6.2Nine fictitious documentaries and films reflect the mood of late 1970s Germany, particularly the two-month period in 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped by the RAF (Red Army Faction). The kidnap had been made to orchestrate the release of the original leaders of the RAF, aka the Baader-Meinhof.
6.0A retrospective special commemorating the 20th anniversary of the sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
4.0The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.
6.7Short biographical documentary about the life of Alfred Florstedt and his life as a progressive communist from the Weimar Republic to his death in 1985.
10.0From an official perspective, marginal youth culture did not exist in East Germany. The topic of subcultures was taboo in the GDR, and groups such as goths, skinheads, anti-skins, punks and neo-Nazis were dismissed as social deviations promoted by western countries. Director Roland Steiner had access to such young East Germans in the late 1980s. Over the course of four years, he brought them before the camera in an attempt to understand what drew them to these groups.
6.0Professor Niall Ferguson argues that Britain's decision to enter the First World War was a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide.
For African athletes making money abroad is the big goal. But Kenyan marathon runners need to be careful – the industry is ruthless and only few make it. For years, sports managers have been bringing African athletes to Europe to run in marathons with promises of potential prize money and a top career. For many it’s a means of escaping poverty. But what price do the marathon runners themselves pay? Long-distance running is among the toughest disciplines in the world. Professional marathon runners battle over seconds in a race more than 40km long - seconds that are often worth huge sums of money. Running has become a business. The prize money for a major event can be in five figures. Participants have to be world-class athletes to win these amounts.
8.2Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
0.0Blixa Bargeld (born Christian Emmerich) is a German-born musician active in a number of artistic fields. He is best known for his studio work and live performances with the groups Einstürzende Neubauten and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. In the center the front singer of this busting sound event – one of the most dazzling personalities in the history of German music: Blixa Bargeld. Nobody else embodied the 1980ies West Berlin punk attitude more than him. Nobody was so over the edge, so demonic and at the same time so inventive. Blixa Bargeld is mainly known for being the mind and front singer of Einstürzende Neubauten, although he is a multi-talent and has never restricted himself to being only musician. Portrait for ZDF/arte series "Mein Leben"
8.0The war in the Ukraine has changed the way many European countries view Russian politics. Suddenly it became clear how dependent countries had become on Russian gas imports for decades and what Vladimir Putin was up to. However, no country needs more gas than Germany. It was only after Russia's invasion of the Ukraine that the German government realized that Russia had long used gas as a weapon to impose its will on states. The instrument created for this purpose is the natural gas production company GAZPROM. So how did Germany become so dependent on Russian gas? The documentary shows how, over several decades and several changes of government, a broad alliance of politicians and business representatives did everything possible to secure Germany's energy supply with cheap Russian gas, while the Kremlin's foreign policy became increasingly aggressive and the warnings of experts went unheeded.
8.7A documentary about the history and reformation of Toronto punk band Death from Above 1979.
6.5Documentary tells the story of Germany's origins from the Carboniferous period to the present day. It leads from the highest Alpine peaks to the rugged North Sea coasts - from the craters of the Eifel to the river labyrinth of the Spreewald. Back then - around 300 million years ago - giant dragonflies, for example, buzzed through dozens of meter-high fern forests. In the course of the Earth's history, however, we also encounter dying dinosaurs, meet rhinos and elephants on the Rhine and come across what is probably the first human in Heidelberg. Later, the Neanderthals appear and suddenly disappear again - for reasons that are still unknown. And finally, modern humans gradually spread and began to shape their environment.