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The history of the peplum genre, known as sword-and-sandal cinema, set in Antiquity, from the silent film era to the present day.

Revealing story about the mysterious Nazi organization "Lebensborn," which was intended to serve the SS in pursuing population policy and racial hygiene goals by systematically producing "hereditarily valuable" children. The film depicts an anti-Hitler Knight's Cross recipient with false papers who becomes a witness and victim of relevant events in a Lebensborn home, where 30 enthusiastic BDM girls and a number of SS hooligans and frontline soldiers have just moved in to "give the Führer a child."

When Ingeborg Bachmann and Max Frisch meet for the first time in Paris in the summer of 1958, they are already international celebrities of the literary world. In the four years that follow, they dabble in great love and an open relationship between his hometown of Zurich and her adopted Rome.

Before Dawn charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home.

The first feature film to represent the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective. Shot on location at Landsberg, the largest DP camp in U.S.-occupied Germany, and mixing neorealist and expressionist styles, the film follows a Polish Jew and his family from pre-war Warsaw through Auschwitz and the DP camps.

Hitler's biography told like never before. Besides brief historical localizations by a narrator, only contemporaries and Hitler himself speak: no interviews, no reenactment, no illustrative graphics and no technical gadgets. The testimonies from diaries, letters, speeches and autobiographies are assembled with new, often unpublished archive material. Hitler's life and work are thus reflected in a unique way in interaction with the image of the society in the years 1889 to 1945.

The incredible story of Bruno Lüdke (1908-44), the alleged worst mass murderer in German criminal history; or actually, a story of forged files and fake news that takes place during the darkest years of the Third Reich, when the principles of criminal justice, subjected to the yoke of a totalitarian system that is beginning to collapse, mean absolutely nothing.

In 1756, a masked ball was officially celebrated in the Dresden Palais of the Saxon Minister Heinrich von Brühl. Unofficially, however, talks are taking place with the envoys of Austria, Russia and France with the aim of conspiring against the Prussian King Frederick II. The Prussian envoy, Major von Lindeneck, succeeded in bringing a copy of the concluded secret treaty to the Prussian king. Friedrich consults with his generals, who urge caution. Friedrich is stunned by the reaction and now develops a counter-plan. To do this, he sends von Lindeneck back to Dresden. However, the latter is not very enthusiastic about this, as he thinks he has reason to doubt his wife Blanche's marital fidelity, and he now has to leave her alone.

The film reconstructs in Berlin a scene in front of the German consulate in Moscow, using a single and continuous camera shot, with no cuts. Russian immigrants are standing and waiting to get a visa; there's a different gate for each travel reason. Help and assistance is being offered in front of the entrances. A woman walks by the waiting line and is withheld: Her bag is too big and must be handed in. She looks for a place where she can leave it.

Based on a true story, EXTREME NUMBER is the story of a young refugee from Chechnya who comes to Berlin, Germany in 2004 and is thrown into prison. He enlists the help of a translator to escape and joins a terrorist group that gives him a very special order. Authentic war documentation is embedded into the film as the Chechen protagonist’s flashback. This is real coverage of war, shot by a Chechen rebel from 1994-2000 in Chechnya. Real and fictional levels of the story blend together as a whole.

Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation. A man is wrongly accused of collaboration. Desperate to save his dignity, he faces an impossible moral choice.

For the USA, World War 2 was an all-out war - to mobilize the masses, the US government launched a huge propaganda campaign and cinema, the medium of the masses, was quite simply their most important weapon. Government authorities monitored the production of feature films and the military itself produced documentaries aimed at rallying the American people to support the troops. This film tells the story of four Hollywood directors of European origin, who returned to the "Old World" during the Second World War to make propaganda documentaries for the US Army at the front: William Wyler from Alsace, Frank Capra from Italy, Anatole Litvak from Ukraine and - in post-war Germany - Billy Wilder from Austria.

A great historical film about the origins of the automobile: Bertha Benz wrote herself into the history of technology with the first, daring ride in a horseless carriage and gave her husband Carl's invention its breakthrough. Behind this daring act is a story of unshakeable trust, confidence and great love.

Based upon the true story of Ranuccio Bandinelli, an antifascist Archaeology and History of Art teacher who sought to steer clear of politics but who found himself appointed, ex-officio, as Hitler and Mussolini’s official guide during their visit to Rome and Florence.

For centuries, art has stylised violence against women - and called it beauty. Proserpina (or Persephone) frees herself from Pluto's grip and leads us through masterpieces from antiquity to the present day: from Roman sarcophagi to Bernini, from Artemisia Gentileschi to Marina Abramović. This journey through art history opens up new perspectives on the representation of sexual violence in art.

A woman comes to America from Germany through unfortunate circumstances and has to go through a number of experiences and changes.

Because of the power of love, the last year of Franz Kafka's life becomes his happiest. The well-known writer has never before been able to allow himself to experience intimacy, he suffers from tuberculosis and is dependent on his overbearing family. In the summer of 1923, he met Dora Diamant in the seaside resort Graal-Müritz on the Baltic Sea coast, where he is convalescing and she is working in a Jewish Volksheim. He is a man of world, the 14 years younger woman is from the deep East, he can write, she can dance. She has both feet firmly on the ground, he is always hovering a little above it. She embraces the indicative, he gets tangled up in the conjunctive. But the worldly wise Dora accepts him as he is. And he accepts her. Together they go to Berlin and when Franz's health deteriorates rapidly, to a sanatorium in Austria. They are granted a single year together until Franz Kafka's health deteriorates incurable. However their year together allows them to feel the glory of life.

A historical drama about the revolution of 1848/1849 in the Austrian empire.

The singer and dancer Vera Opalinska performs as Arlette in 1920s Paris, where she is a star. Next on the agenda is a tour of the United States. The contract is to be signed after a final, highly acclaimed show. During the negotiations, her new PR agent asks about her background.

Banklady tells the true story of Gisela Werler, a law-abiding factory worker from Hamburg, who falls in love with a thief and becomes a media darling as Germany’s first and most notorious female bank robber. Cunning, sexy, and exciting, Gisela and her beloved Hermann pull off one daring heist after another. Banklady follows this outlaw who captured Germany’s imagination, boldly defying gender expectations and living a decades-long Bonnie and Clyde romance.

In 1427, Lady Maria Van Arnstein is informed that her beloved husband Michel Van Arnstein was murdered in a battle against the Hussitas. However he was actually betrayed by his ambitious cousin Hettenhein that wants his lands and castle. The Pope's Great Inquisitor Janus Suppertour meets King König Sigismund and tells that he wants Maria for him.

Michel must go to dangerous lengths to save his wife and newborn child from the intrigues of the king’s mistress in this historical drama.

Hildegard von Bingen was truly a woman ahead of her time. A visionary in every sense of the word, this famed 12th-century Benedictine nun was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, naturalist, scientist, physician, herbalist and ecological activist.

In the year 1968, the “Bockerer” has decided, after many attempts, to marry his long-time widowed housekeeper, Anna. Gustl, whom he as taken in like a son after the war, will open a butchery in the Czech small town Kostelec and invites the Bockerers to spend their wedding journey with him and his Elena. The “Prague Spring”, of which everywhere is talked so much about, promises a nice honeymoon, and their friend Hatzinger is taken along on the journey as well. Soon after their arrival, the Bockerer has to realize that “Communism with a human face” is still an idle wish.

An ideological and physical barrier fell on 9 November 1989 in Berlin. For 28 years, this 155 km wall divided Germany in two, separating friends and family. The recent discovery of some documents reveals the stories of those who managed to escape to join their loved ones, or simply to regain their freedom. Demonstrating imagination and courage, some dug tunnels to get under the Berlin Wall, others inflated balloons to fly over it, while others disguised themselves with fake uniforms. By combining archives, reconstitution sequences and intrigue scenes, this documentary plunges us into a Berlin that has now disappeared, through the prism of the art of escape under the GDR.

A journey back to the middle of the 20th century: the story of Baden-Württemberg's beginnings 70 years ago.

A mysterious story from the madness of the Second World War: when the Red Army shot down a civilian plane over Brandenburg villages on April 20, 1945, the incident not only destroyed lives, but also left deep traces and numerous questions at the scene of the accident: who was on board the plane and who was even allowed to leave Berlin, which had been bombed by the Allies?

A multiscreen installation, a colorful beach bar, the statue of Saint Christopher - a postcolonial look at the edge of the harbor in Flensburg and the question of what is made visible and what is not.

A real time recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which leading SS and Nazi Party officals gathered to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Led by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, the Wannsee Conference was the starting point for the Jewish Holcaust which led to the mass murder of six million people.

Spanning 50 years, the documentary traces a path through the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, linking the legacy of the rock band "Ton Steine Scherben" - best known for their work in the 1970s - with their successors.

Angela Merkel's decision in autumn 2015 to open the borders for refugees split the country - some praised the moral stance, others criticized the surrender of sovereignty. Yet what would appear to be well-planned activity is in reality a policy of muddling along, chance, trial and error. The Driven Ones is a chronicle of the refugee crisis which shows that the political actors are being driven along, crushed between self-imposed constraints and events that have spun out of control.

On September 15, 2008, the financial world faces its worst crisis since the end of the Second World War. Lehman Brothers, one of the world's largest investment banks, goes bankrupt. Savings banks and their customers in Germany are particularly hard hit. Landlords Claudia and Torsten Büttner also lose all their savings as a result of the crash and are unscrupulously cheated by their bank advisors. They include savings bank employee Arno Breuer, who reluctantly sells Lehman certificates, and young online banker Nele Fromm, who is driven by ambition and potential bonuses.

In 1952, a train journey to Oslo becomes a battleground when a journalist and her husband confront a man who claims to have saved thousands during WWII. As questions arise about his true motives, the line between hero and opportunist blurs.

Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx formed one of the most famous duos in world history. In contrast to Marx, however, Engels seems to have fallen into oblivion today. Unjustly so. Moving archive images, documentary footage and graphic novels lead us back to the time of Friedrich Engels, who shaped the Communist movement like no other.

Vienna, Austria, 1912. The brilliant painter Oskar Kokoschka, considered one of the main representatives of the expressionist movement, has a tumultuous relationship, both professional and romantic, with the composer Alma Mahler.

Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.

Grace Dalrymple Elliot is a British aristocrat trapped in Paris during the French Revolution. Determined to maintain her stiff upper lip and pampered life despite the upheaval, Grace continues her friendship with the Duke of Orléans while risking her life and liberty to protect a fugitive.

Johann Strauss firmly established himself as the leader of a dance orchestra in Vienna in the 1840s. His sons Johann junior and Josef have clearly inherited their father's talent. Nevertheless, father Johann is strictly opposed to both of them training as composers.

In the late 19th century young radiologist Georg starts to experiment with the recently discovered X-Ray technology. At first his methods seem promising and his patients get better. Soon however, he plunges himself more and more into his work and must learn the true devastating nature of his treatments.

Lou Andreas-Salomé, the woman who enraptured 19th century Europe’s greatest minds, recounts her life to Ernst Pfeiffer in this German film directed by Cordula Kablitz-Post. A published novelist, poet and essayist, Salomé’s desire to live a life free from convention scandalized society but spurred genius and passion in others, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Rée and her lover, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Under the tutelage of Sigmund Freud, she became the first female psychoanalyst.

Wolfgang Beltracchi got away with forging art masterpieces for over 40 years. He may be egotistical and nihilistic, but his genius in undeniable. He managed to fool gallery owners, historians and investors with the stroke of a brush. This documentary follows his last days as a free man.

GDR, August 1989: Hanna and Andreas became a target of the secret police and had to give up their plans for their future studies and desired professions. Instead, they face arbitrariness, mistrust and reprisals. Their only chance for a self-determined life lies in fleeing across the Baltic Sea. Fifty kilometres of water separate them from freedom - and only a thin connecting rope around their wrists saves them from absolute loneliness.

It is April 1933 and the Nazis have been in power in Germany for just two months. All liberties have been suppressed. Fritz Lang, who has just directed “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse”, is summoned to the private quarters of Joseph Goebbels. The objective of the meeting: to convince the most prominent man in German cinema to work for the Nazi regime.

As a result of the Holocaust and later, AIDS, the male homosexual community has sustained bitter losses and, according to Praunheim, lesbian women have now placed themselves at the head of the so-called queer movement. The female protagonists in the film represent two different generations; they also incorporate the past and present status of homosexuals in society.

The young Russian Leonid Zaharov tries to flee to the West via the GDR at the end of the 1980s. When he is bounced and there is no way forward, he looks back. Does he give up everything for freedom or does his happiness lie at his back?

Based on the childhood memories of actor Michael Degen, the movie deals with the everyday struggle to survive as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany. As his father had died in 1940 after being released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Michael and his mother fear to be deported themselves. They manage to live in Berlin with false names and faked papers, hidden by several, often broken, people...

In medieval Germany, poor and witty Till Eulenspiegel fools and cheats citizens, churchmen, and landlords. Although in most cases he uses his wit for personal well-being, he often helps the poor and weak. Eventually, he gains an influential but also dangerous position as royal fool at the court of the emperor.

Recent archaeological discoveries in Germany have changed the way we look at Celtic society and the major role played by women.