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On August 21, 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City, after eleven years of exile. The killer, Ramon Mercader, a young Spanish communist, was a character straight out of a spy movie. He was recruited in 1937 by Stalin's secret service when the latter decided to eliminate Trotsky, that tireless opponent. Through the epic story of Trotsky's last years in exile in Mexico, enriched with flashbacks to his political past, this film, a true historical thriller, offers a cross-narrative between Trotsky's life in exile and the setting up, at the same time, of "Operation Duck", the code name for his assassination.

This opera revolves around the demonic collective possession suffered by the Ursuline nuns in the convent of Loudun in 1634. The story concentrates on the handsome but doomed Urbain Grandier who fights against fanaticism and evil.

They were the absolute superstars in ancient Rome: charioteers. The heroes of the racetrack, often slaves, risked their lives in every competition. Only a few enjoyed the rewards of victory into old age. Using ancient documents and artifacts, the documentary traces the biography of Scorpus, probably the most successful Roman charioteer.

Both a visit to a very peculiar exhibition at the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden, Germany, as well as an unprejudiced look at the artistic depiction of violence throughout history and the ways in which that depiction has been gendered.

Hiltrud Janssen soon achieves what only a few people in her life are able to do: she celebrates her 100th birthday. It's just a shame that she fell out with her younger sister Betty many years ago. Back then, Betty worked as a housekeeper for the influential CDU politician Heinrich Verhoeven and had an affair with him. Verhoeven was accused of adultery, but Betty was able to convince her sister Hiltrud to make a false statement. Verhoeven was acquitted and Hiltrud never spoke to Betty again. Hiltrud and Betty's sister Martha, now 98 years old, thought the 100th birthday was the perfect occasion to reconcile the estranged sisters and arranged a meeting.

In July 1945, US troops are leaving Saxony and Thuringia while the Red Army takes control of the territories. In a small village near Leipzig, the inhabitants try to adjust to the new authority.

Their family name alone evokes horror: Himmler, Frank, Goering, Hoess. This film looks at the descendants of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime: men and women who were left a legacy that indelibly associates them with one of the greatest abominations in history. What is it like to have grown up with a name that immediately raises images of genocide? How do they live with the weight of their ancestors' crimes? Is it possible to move on from the crimes of their ancestors?

Film by Richard Oswald.

A journey through the spectacular National Museum of African American History and Culture, opened in Washington D. C. in December 2016, a true exploration of the history and culture of the United States from the point of view of African Americans.

A young woman defies the social conventions of the time and goes her own way. The historical truth is clearly overshadowed by the great, universal themes of love, hate, jealousy and greed.

Death and the devil, nudity and eroticism, horror in blazing colours, Gothic art cast a spell over people 500 years ago. In these image-poor times, art deliberately and skilfully played with the emotions of the viewer, triggering fear, devotion, but also rapture. Art documentary on German gothic art of the late-middle ages.

A semi-documentary feature about one of the biggest criminal cases in Austrian history – the letter bomb attacks of Franz Fuchs.

A cinematic, character-driven insight to what it meant to produce and to own a car in communist times: the Socialist propaganda dreams and the hard reality of living that dream. The freedom that these slow and clumsy vehicles were giving to their owners; the cars as an instrument in the Cold War battle; legends and homemade tune-ups as an attempt to stand at least a little bit off the crowd.

A biography of the eighteenth century Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa.

The film is a novelized biography of François Villon (1431-1463), known as the Wandering Poet, who led a troubled life due to the fact that he supported the free expression of people in a coercive climate.

On September 10, 1898, Sisi, the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, was stabbed to death with a sharpened file by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni. The successful fiction about Sisi by Norbert Beilharz is based on Elisabeth's inner monologue and, subjectively, on many events in her life.

Prussian King Frederick II was keen to hire the dancer Barberina, who had already enjoyed great success in Italy and England, for the Berlin opera house.

The passionate story of the femme fatale, seductive and dangerous, a myth and a fantasy, through her representation in art.

Described by Deadline Hollywood as the "tragic true story" of Chris Gueffroy, it follows one of the last daring attempts to escape across the infamous Berlin Wall.

The documentary marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of Germany's best-known art, architecture and design school, the Bauhaus. Exploring the legacy of this iconic German institution, our film crew traveled the world, meeting architects, artists, urban planners, doers and dreamers. Do the Bauhaus' social ideals and design principles still shape how we live today?

In the chaotic, highly emotional period after the First World War in 1918, the foreign ministers Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929) and Aristide Briand (1862-1932) put all their energies into trying to lead their countries, Germany and France, which were at enmity with each other, into a peaceful future and a united Europe. After their deaths, Europe has to go through a second hell before the plan of these two visionaries succeeds. The cinematic mix of archive footage and re-enactments shows two statesmen, full of facts and emotion, who give each other nothing in difficult negotiations, but at the same time hold on to their shared vision. Even if these two human lives were not enough to reap the fruits of their labor, they sowed the seeds for the next generation. In 1926, Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a sign that the peoples of the world believe in a Europe at peace.

The story of Walerjan Wrobel, who was taken from occupied Poland to Germany for forced labor in 1941.

The true story of an operation which was a revolution, not only for the world of medicine. Frankfurt 1967. A young doctor called Lisa Scheel is trying to get a foothold in the male-dominated world of transplant surgery. But after she is passed over by her main professor in favour of a male applicant, on the spur of the moment Lisa heads off to Cape Town. Here, she starts work for Dr. Barnaard, who, like his colleagues in Frankfurt, is planning a heart transplantation. Together with the surgeon Hamilton Naki, who due to apartheid can only join the team secretly, Lisa is a major contributor to the first heart transplant in history.

The last journey of Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach leads from Leipzig to Potsdam. Already 60 years old, he hopes that an audition with the Prussian King Frederick II will not only bring him artistic recognition and renewed appreciation, but also an end to his grueling financial worries.

Leipzig, December 1734: Christmas brings the Bach family together. The first snow has fallen and the children Gottfried and Elisabeth are delighted about the arrival of their older brothers Friedemann and Emanuel. The Thomaskantor has retired to his music room. Anna Magdalena supports her husband, as there are only a few days left and his latest work, the six-part "Christmas Oratorio", must be finished on time. It is awaited with suspicion by the city council and the gentlemen of the consistory, who have long found Bach's waywardness a thorn in their side and fear that, after the premiere of the St. Matthew Passion a few years earlier, the St. Thomas Church will once again be filled with "operatic" music. With the oratorio, Johann Sebastian Bach hopes that he will finally become court composer in Dresden. And, as always, he demands that all members of the family join forces to help him. But differences of opinion are increasingly delaying the completion of Bach's most famous work.

The pianist Kyra Steckeweh and the filmmaker Tim van Beveren search for traces where Countess Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) lived and worked. Their documentary is a journey through time to a half brilliant, half broken Europe.

Sportswear dominates everyday street wear; but so does haute couture: what began a hundred years ago as functional clothing for playing tennis or golf has revolutionized the way people dress.

TV post-war drama about a gruesome chapter of the Nazi era. Nadja Uhl reveals "wild" euthanasia in psychiatry. Oldenburg, 1948: For Margaret Oelkers (Uhl) and her two little sons, the pension is not enough as a war-wittwe behind and in front. But the authorities are working hard, not even because of their lack of credentials on the employment of their killed in the war. After an energetic appearance at the office, she is briefly put into the psychiatry of the Wehnen nursing home as a trainee. The consequences are bitter: one attests to their schizophrenia, takes away the children and brings them to the sister in the country. For a year, Margarete was kept in the hospital against her will, and forced to do so with electric shocks. After her release, she was placed under the guardianship of her neighbor Erich Windhorst (Martin Wuttke), a man with an SS past...

In 1881 Ludwig of Bavaria goes on a cruise on a Swiss lake. He takes with him a famous actor, Josef Kainz, to act out the scenes from a story which took place on the lake, at the actual locations.

Berchtesgaden in the 15th century: A power struggle between mountain peasants who have been raising milk cows on common land and a village bailiff trying to gain power driving them off the land. Both have a ducal documents that states the opposite.

The heroine is a traveler between worlds and times. Between the authorities of 1813, the church and science, Rosa Koelbl remains a stranger. The time is not yet ripe for the values ​​this woman embodies.

In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.

A passionate young couple finds itself caught up in a conflict between opposing political factions. Entangled as they are in a web of political intrigue, deception and madness, will the power of their love prevail? Set in England during the Civil War, Bellini’s last opera I puritani opposes Royalist cavaliers and rebellious Puritans. Its sweeping historical drama and romantic intrigues drew rapturous music of melancholy intensity from the composer. For the first time, this production includes the entire score written for the work’s Paris premiere.

This silent-screen classic, like many others produced near the end of the silent era, was both a theatrical extravaganza boasting an original orchestral score and an item which languished in obscurity for many years. When Carlo Piccardi took what was left of the score by Maurice Jaubert and re-created it, the existing footage was restored and paired with a new orchestral performance which was shown in Paris in 1988. The film's story concerns the travails of a woman who has been living quite comfortably as the mistress of a colonel in the Tsar's army in Russia. However, she eventually encounters a penniless young lieutenant and falls madly in love with him, as he does with her. Despite her best intentions of remaining with the colonel, and his intention to avoid trouble with his fellow soldiers, they cannot forswear this relationship, and tragedy is the inevitable result. The title refers to a moving incident in the story, and translates as "the wonderful lie of Nina Petrovna."

The film loosely retells the legend of the Alvensleben ring through a series of one-take scenes filmed at different locations in Kalbe. Each scene acts like a fragment of memory that moves between centuries. Historical reenactments mix with contemporary elements. Three brothers appear as rulers of modern "kingdoms": the supermarkets of Kalbe. Their conflict eventually leads to their downfall.

Queen Elizabeth has worked with 14 Prime Ministers, including holding confidential weekly meetings. It is not known whether she has influenced her Prime Ministers, or what happens when they clash.

For the first time, five Antifa activists talk in detail about the background and practices of an unusually professional movement that countered the flourishing neo-Nazi scene in reunified Germany after 1989.

A portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), a genius of modern architecture, whose life passed between glory, scandal and tragedy.

The story tells of a family tragedy that is based (not always factually accurate) on a well-known tragedy involving the ruling family of Austria-Hungary in 1889. Various names have been changed.

One of the most significant cases in European archaeology is the grave of the shaman woman of Bad Dürrenberg, a key finding of the last hunter-gatherer groups. From a time when there were no written records, this site was first researched by the Nazis, who saw a physically strong male warrior from an ‘original Aryan race’ in the buried person. It was, in fact, the most powerful woman of her time. The latest research shows that she was dark-skinned, had physical deformities, and was a spiritual leader. The documentary – using high-end CGI and motion capture – compares the researchers of the Nazi era, who misrepresented and instrumentalised their findings, to today’s researchers, who meticulously compile findings and evidence, and use cross- disciplinary methods to examine and evaluate them. It also substantiates the theory of the powerful roles women played in prehistoric times. The story of this woman, buried with a baby in her arms, still fascinates us 9,000 years after her death.

An account of the life and work of controversial German orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89), celebrated as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.

Silent movie adaptation of Lessing's play. Set in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade, it describes how the wise Jewish merchant Nathan, the enlightened sultan Saladin and the (initially anonymous) Templar bridge their gaps between Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

Explores how Hitler’s personal library provides a look into his mind and how it significantly informed his worldview.

Documentary feature about the village 'Rotfront' located in Kyrgyzstan, where half of the inhabitants have German roots. The feature depicts their history, their motivations to stay in Kyrgyzstan and their relationship to Germany.

Count Lerchenbach, the King's Adjutant, changes places with his master, King Ludwig I, in a romantic assignation with the beautiful Countess Rosenau.

From the cabinets of curiosities created in Italy during the 16th century to the prestigious cultural institutions of today, a history of museums that analyzes the social and political changes that have taken place over the centuries.

Fragment of last reel from "History Lessons" presented in an installation as a special event for the Venice Biennale Arte.

On December 6, 1917, Finland declared its independence from Russia. A detailed chronicle of the major events in the history of this young European nation.