Discover Movies

Footage of the Mainz carnival procession.

Once every decade, an extraordinary folk festival puts the small town of Baden in an exceptional state of vibrancy that resonates far beyond its borders. Thousands of people contribute to the success of the Badenfahrt in numerous clubs and pubs - a festival that unites the many volunteers for ten days and nights. Over a million people celebrated the last Badenfahrt. Some of the diverse people, whether asylum seekers or CEOs, who played an active role, are accompanied by this cinema documentary. Whether it's a handful of friends daringly building a pub on a steep slope, a young team turning night into day with a party club, or half a village aiming high with its rocket launching ramp: the countless helpers, who go their own ways in normal life, join forces to create something unique before, during and after the Badenfahrt. This feel-good movie is an emotional plea for diversity and for volunteerism in a country where associations are an important pillar of society.

The only novel written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (Il Gattopardo, 1958), just like its screen adaptation by Luchino Visconti, is considered a masterpiece. This film tells about the life of Tomasi and his German-Baltic wife Alexandra von Wolff-Stomersee – their unusual love story. The chaos of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and World War II forced Alexandra to leave St. Petersburg and later on – the family's castle in Stāmeriena, Latvia. During the war, in 1943, she fled to her husband in Palermo, where she would live until the day she died.

The Deutsche Bundesbahn presents the intercity train system.

The testimony of the men who unwittingly became war photographers on the streets of their own towns in Northern Ireland, when violence erupted around them. Instead of photographing weddings and celebrities, as they expected, they produced the images that crudely show the suffering of ordinary people between 1968 and 1998, the worst years of the conflict.

Sven is thirty, eloquent, studied archaeology and has never been guilty of anything. But, since puberty, Sven has felt sexually attracted to children. He attends therapy sessions and is determined never give in to his desires. In order to overcome his isolation, and to protect himself, Sven ventures into the public eye – a risky step that few dare to take. Filmmakers Sebastian Meise and Thomas Rieder accompanied Sven over several years and documented Sven’s struggle to deal with his sexual inclination, without being a danger to himself or others. Thoughts are free – where does guilt begin? Is society too quick to accuse? What place in society is a man like Sven allowed to take? This film puts both morals and enlightenment to the test.

The world of ultras is as fascinating as it is inaccessible: They create a colorful atmosphere in the stadiums and support their club unconditionally - even radically if necessary.

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.

A unique story on the discovery of a 40-thousand-year-old, perfectly preserved baby woolly mammoth. Cutting edge science and Arctic adventure come alive in this story of a unique discovery: a perfectly preserved baby woolly mammoth that suddenly appears on a Siberian riverbank, triggering an extraordinary investigation into her life and death at the end of the Ice Age. Solving the mystery of her origins unites men whose lives are worlds apart except for their link to the woolly mammoth.

The villagers of Churvaleti knew since the end of the Georgian war in 2008 that they were living on a border. Life was simple, but not far from normal. Until a while ago, when Russian patrols started drawing the borderline and putting up barbed wire fences. In Churvaleti, the barbed wire fence goes right through the village. Families and communities got divided. Every other hour border patrols pass by and put anyone in captivity who come close to the fence. In spite of this menace, the villagers find ways to stay in touch with their relatives and friends across the line. Life goes on, but will it ever be the same again?

Austrian United Nations Judge Claudia Fenz arrives in Kosovo to hear the case of a group of ethnic Albanian men accused of killing a Serbian woman. Whilst dealing with the peculiarities of the region, including rolling blackouts, she meets with prominent locals and learns of the traditional, somewhat radical, approach to justice in Kosovo, favoring reconciliation over punishment.

A portrait of the filmmakers Bärbel Freund and Karl Heil like a song in its changing verses, the locations were chosen according to mood and season: in spring, in snow, in Venice, in the flat, alone and together.

Was grandpa a Nazi? When director Jens Schanze confronts his mother with her father's past, decades of silence have passed. The information that emerges about grandpa does not fit with the loving father that Jens' mother always talked about. Jens and his four older sisters never met their grandfather; he died in 1954. Jens' mother is in her seventies when her son, born in 1971, starts to poke around in the family history. She agrees to a critical examination of her father. Secrets hidden for over 60 years finally come to light. As they uncover the truth, this perfectly normal family goes through a highly emotional journey. Most shaken is the mother; her story of discovery is at the center of the film.

Documentary about the German-American entrepreneur Adolphus Busch.

The film accompanies professionals who, in the area of tension between pragmatism and empathy, dedicate themselves to the work that has to be done after a death.

Diva and Hollywood star Zsa Zsa Gabor experienced everything Hollywood had to offer: attention, glamour, and media success. But the Hungarian-born actress (1917-2016) paid a high price for it. Her acting career was thwarted, she experienced domestic violence, and she had to learn to adapt to the Hollywood system.

The film observes the implementation of an idea by a special company, the Waldviertler shoe factory, in one of Austria's most precarious regions, the northern Waldviertel. How can the visions of a just world that drive company owner Heinrich Staudinger be realized in the economic developments of the present?

Goodbye Tibet is the story of a 20,000-foot high mountain pass on the border between Tibet and Nepal. For thousands of Tibetan refugees it has been their gateway to freedom - but for many it has been a fatal gauntlet.

The film was shot in an old, decrepit building where dozens of guest-workers' families live. The owner, a local influential politician, has avoided paying for the maintenance of the building under the legal standards by using his connections to proclaim the building a national cultural heritage. However, the rent he has been charging was as if the building were an object that offered standard comfort. The only German tenant takes the crew around and speaks of his battle against the landlord’s manipulation.

A film about news, life and death. Before the media became so prevalent, we were concerned about our immediate neighborhood. At the end of the day, news was the subject of our conversations, but now it's possible to converse with someone at the other end of the globe. We do it all the time. It's simple. The world has become one big neighborhood. Now Headline News has replaced the back fence. That's the news service of the eigthies. It's a new idea and a new approach.

With "Emil and the Detectives" Erich Kästner is revolutionizing children's book literature. In the Weimar Republic, he quickly rose as an editor, writer and screenwriter. His books were burned in 1933. Nevertheless, he does not emigrate, published under a pseudonym and abroad. In the post-war period, Kästner was a moral authority. But he can no longer build on his previous success, gets caught up in love affairs and fights his frustration with alcohol. Until his death in 1974, he struggled with the decision not to go into exile. The documentary drama takes a new look at Kästner's picture.

The film shows images from everyday life in a small village in Central Anatolia: how people there live, work, celebrate festivals, and interact with each other. For comparison, the film shows the lives of Turkish guest workers in Germany: their everyday lives, their problems, their relationships with each other and with Germans.

In 1532, Francisco de Pizarro defeated the great Inca emperor Atahualpa's army of 30,000 warriors with just 180 men. Who was this man who brought the powerful empire to its knees? What drove him to pioneer his way to the elevated plains of the Andes, and with a force of just a few men, take on the powerful Inca army?

Martin Greenfield learned to sew while mending shirts for the Gestapo in Auschwitz and went on to make suits for U.S. presidents and stars. Now, at 95, America’s greatest tailor is grappling with his legacy.

On a journey around Morocco Abderahim teaches his son Zoheir the art of storytelling. Zoheir has to face his fear of performing in front of the audience and experiences that the first story to learn is your own.

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

An insight into the training of recreational pilots.

A look at the life and work of Chilean writer Isabel Allende, the most widely read author in Spanish, with a special focus on her latest novel.

The worldwide crises pose particular challenges for global diplomacy. The film accompanies German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and asks how she wants to communicate her human rights-oriented foreign policy and where she reaches her limits. How can human rights be upheld when despots and autocratic systems dominate liberal democracies?

A documentary about the underground singer-songwriter Tobias Gruben, his upbringing and his musical career, featuring past live perfomances by himself and cover versions of his songs by contemporary artists.

Super 8 (Black & White) film by Helga Fanderl

Douglas Sirk talks about his 1937 film 'Zu neuen Ufern'

Two of Pina Bausch’s most famous works are rehearsed in Germany and Senegal, championing the choreographer’s legacy through a younger generation of dancers.

On operated by Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck the German Empire is finally founded in 1871 on the floors of Versailles castle, ancestral seat of the French monarchy.

Peter Märthesheimer was a producer at Cologne’s public TV station, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, when he met Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1972. He later worked with Fassbinder on DESPAIR and BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, and, with psychologist Pea Fröhlich, wrote the scripts for LOLA and the other films in THE BRD TRILOGY. This interview was conducted in 2003.

Documentary about the making of the 1949 film "The Third Man".

Expectations on all sides. In front of the camera and behind it. On the screen and in front of it.

Like a mosaic, the film “Our Garden of Eden” shows the everyday life in an allotment garden area that reflects the multiethnic and multicultural modern Swiss society today. People of various geographical, religious, social and political backgrounds till the earth of their respective lots here side by side, creating a microcosm full of dreams, loneliness, homesickness, joy, family tragedies, strokes of fate and conflicts. The Swiss concept of tidiness and order meets an exotic talent for improvisation, the will to integrate and respect meet ignorance. Christians and Muslims, people from nations at enmity enjoy a peaceful coexistence in the allotment gardens, sharing what seems most precious in our society today: time, attention and space. They find the path to themselves as well as a place in the eternal cycle that life is.

Documentary about the obstacles handicapped people face when looking for love

The main themes of this film are WAR - FLIGHT - FAMINE - DISEASE from the viewpoint of children. Refugees from Afghanistan, Palestine, Nicaragua and Cambodia. Military training of Persian and Cambodian (refugee) children in camps. The soundtrack accompanying these frames consists of poems which prisoners scratched on the walls of their cells before they were executed.

One week each year Iranians stay out all night. Women abandon legal curfews. Men weep. Communities gather to mourn their saint's death, ask that wishes be granted, give thanks for prayers answered. While this week showcases Iran's most restrictive religious elements, it offers openings for this culture's most intimate connections. Is a change in the perception of love inherently political because it affects individuals and their view of the world? As we follow three couples negotiating love, we learn freedom is not what we assume it is and love is more than we imagine it to be.

A documentary about the Atlantic Ocean, which tells of the coastal inhabitants' struggle with the sea, the secrets of the deep, and the benefits of the ocean.

In May 1989, just a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first "Miss Leipzig" contest was held in Leipzig, a competition that required not only beauty but also knowledge of the city and its history. Leipzig photographer Gerhard Gäbler won 20 of the candidates for a double portrait that showed them at work and in their private lives. 18 years later, the filmmaker and the photographer sought out the now 40-year-olds and asked them about their motivation at the time. The film documents resolute, ambitious, intelligent and self-confident women who are representative of a generation that was often able to make more of the opportunities offered by the "turnaround" than those ten or twelve years older.

Opera star Jonas Kaufmann is known as the “King of Tenors”. This emotional and personal film reveals the man behind the star. Here he is chatting with friends, rehearsing for the next concert or simply enjoying family life with his wife and children.

A documentary about new trends in reproductive technology. Language: mainly in Swiss German and German.

Karate, a forty-year-old woman without a relationship, contacts ten different women via dating apps from Tinder, OkCupid or Badoo and meets some of them to escape the desert of loneliness in this big city during post-pandemic times of crisis and learns a lot about life, complex relationship structures, loneliness and herself during these very different encounters.

Short film about ways to fight right-wing extremism

This movie tells the story of a Berlin graffiti crew, in some ways from rags to riches. It starts with their beginnings in Berlin Kreuzberg and ends with their creative movement worldwide. Today, the crew is a well known, prestigious one. Inspired by their philosophy

She is the godmother of performance art. With her shocking public actions she created in the late 60s images that have burned into the general visual memory until today. The life and work of the Austrian artist Valie Export exemplify a development in art history in which women sought and found new ways and means of expression. Her work provides a feminist counterpart to the Viennese actionism of her time, which has influenced numerous artists of subsequent generations. The innovative diversity of her artistic approaches makes Valie Export an icon of 20th century art history.