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The documentary interviews Nobel Peace Prize winners, diplomats, negotiators and former guerrilla fighters who have dedicated their lives to the task. How did their mediation successes come about and why did they fail? Peacemaking is both art and hard work.

A Japanese veil dance is performed

Barely known and never seen, elephant shrews baffle even the zoologists. With their stilt-like legs and long mobile trunk, joined to the body of a large shrew with a golden bottom, they certainly deserve their name - though they are related to neither elephant not shrew! This shy, endangered creature has become the mascot of Kenya’s beautiful Arabuko National Park. The income they attract via tourism pays for the education of local children. The elephant shrew has truly become the Spirit of the Forest.

With his monumental productions, Einar Schleef pushed theatre to the outer reaches, confounded expectations in East and West alike, grappled with GDR origins and the BRD present. A universal artist emerges from the archive: “I’m not human, I’m dynamite”.

For many, the Eurovision Song Contest is the chance for a Pan-European party. But it is also highly political, especially for countries in Eastern Europe. When Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra won in 2022, it was a message of European solidarity against Russian aggression.

In their short, Arnit Likaj and Jasmin Rai explore their feelings and thoughts about what it is like to be caught in between two cultures. They have a migrant background and do not feel like they belong completely in either Germany or their parents' home country. They work with self-written and self-spoken texts in their native languages, while the production process in a potato farm is shown. This short film is their first one.

About the arrival and coming together of a family in Germany marked by the Syrian war.

Against a green-screen backdrop, a group of children and adults ask themselves questions about their gender. In a natural space freed from normativity, the possibilities of rewriting the scripts of their lives become infinite. Acclaimed director Manuel Abramovich and his performers invite us into a dazzling new reality of desires and possible futures.

Stephan Ziller is an aspring actor who has lost his way and looks for his spiritual compass. He goes looking for answers in spiritual, religious and self-help groups across the city of Berlin. He eventually chances upon a romance with Simone Geißler, but soon grows weary of his spiritual pursuit.

In July of 2021 there was a flood of catastrophic scope in the Ahrtal Region of Germany. 135 people lost their lives and countless others lost their possessions, their homes, their most treasured mementos. Three years later the reconstruction is progressing slowly. This is an attempt at exploring, what it means to irretrievably lose a part of ones’ past.

A documentary about striptease and club life narrated by a female stripper.

On 25th December 2011 the Georgian Patriarch Ilia II described his 34 year-long leadership as head of the Georgian Orthodox Church as a ‘sunny night’. Beginning in 1989, and going up to the present, the film essay Sunny Night tells of political and social events since Georgian Independence. A variety of formats and sources, disparate images and voices report on protests, recommencements, uproars and wars, and religious identity that centres around the dominant religion of the nation. In the midst of the ongoing shifts and the various state of affairs, the patriarch stands out as the only constant figure. Meanwhile the sermonised religion begins to take on radical forms, going as far as priests forming front row human-chains, leading protests of several thousand orthodox believers chasing a handful of LGBT activist throughout the streets of Tbilisi in May 2013.

Jana Beller won the TV show „Germany's Next Top Model“ in 2011. Today she is a businesswoman and runs two branches in Bochum of one of the most modern backshop chains in Europe. Model measurements and pastries - does that fit together? And how! The young entrepreneur gives insights into the business of sweet and salty snacks. Shock-frozen, the breads and desserts are delivered from a central production to the individual shops and sold to hungry walk-in customers.

The film shows the spatial distribution and the behaviour of the Mediterranean demoiselle Calopteryx haemorrhoidalis on typical reproduction waters. The great importance of suitable perches becomes obvious. These perches, e. g. single rush stems, are used by immature, hunting individuals as well as by reproductive males that are controlling territories from these sites. The latter chase all other individuals, the result being a spatial segregation between immature and reproductive specimens during the day. Typical behaviour, such as threatening, courting, copulation, and oviposition is shown in different film speeds.

The history of communism as the story of its crises: The two authors Ralph Giordano and Hans-Ulrich Barth take up various uprisings and protests to demonstrate the discrepancy between the claim to power and the reality in “socialist imperialism.” A more nuanced light is shed on individual uprisings, while at the same time feeding into stereotypical Cold War images of the enemy.

March, 2013. A sensational, incomparable find in the basement of a Munich auction house: 44 auction catalogs from the years 1936 to 1944, containing hand-written notes from the Third Reich. Katrin Stoll, present-day owner, takes a brave step and decides to have her own company's history investigated. Adolf Hitler was the worst art thief in history.

A project begun by an Austrian in Canada - the management of an extensive forest area in Algoma, northern Ontario, aimed at the regeneration of the northern biotope - represents a contribution to the protection of the Canadian wilderness.

A film portrait that shows the ups and downs in the life and career of pop star Evelyn Künneke. Künneke mostly acts herself in front of the camera, but also gets to talk to friends and companions like the travesty artist Cristina from Amsterdam.

Twelve years after they went to school together, six children from Berlin with and without disabilities are interviewed on the topic of inclusion in the German school system.

Documentary short.

In 1966, German film critic Theodor Kotulla — who would go on to become one of the New German Cinema's most uncompromising filmmakers — visited the set of Robert Bresson's "Mouchette" (1967) and created this half-hour documentary about the director. It won the 1967 German Film Award for best short documentary.

On the momentous occasion of the Hubble Space Telescope's 15-year anniversary, the European Space Agency released this commemorative documentary looking back of the history of discovery that the telescope has facilitated. Retrace the story of its successes and difficulties, illustrated by state-of-the-art computer animation, as well as spellbinding footage photographs taken from Hubble, much of which has been previously unseen until now. The film presents some of the most fascinating facts about our universe that Hubble has uncovered, and explains things like wormholes, black monsters, and event horizons. All of this is accompanied by a score that captures the grand majesty of the film's subject matter. Written by Anonymous

During a stay in Egypt, Roman Pernack observes the revolutionary unrest on the streets and captures it with his camera. Contemporary history up close.

Once a year, the best DOTA2 players in the world come together to play for up to 42 million dollars in prize money. More than Wimbledon, the Golf Masters and the Tour de France combined. 20 teams with five players each. These 100 have achieved what so many young people dream of today: they are professional players.

Maria, Tirloi and their relatives have no choice: in their Romanian Roma village there is no work. In order to survive and provide for their families at home, they go begging in Hamburg.

A documentary about a family of four generations in Flossenbürg, a village in the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria. The film shows in quiet observations the lives of the village residents and the coexistence of housewife and mother Kerstin and her daughter Lena.

The chestnut tree is old and sick and may have to be felled. But for now, it still stands, towering over the garden. Slowly, like buds unfolding, the stories of the people who gaze upon the tree emerge.

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar's Ayeyarwaddy Delta, claiming 140,000 lives. Despite a filming ban, young Burmese filmmakers clandestinely visited devastated villages after the storm, capturing surreal scenes of loss and resilience. Their emotional footage reveals the profound impact of Nargis, depicting a world where life and death intertwine, altering countless lives forever. For security reasons, the filmmakers couldn't reveal their names and they used pseudonyms. But for the first time, they screened the film with their real names at the 2nd Wathann Film Festival in 2012.

At the age of 38, Silvia Mittermüller is still one of the best German snowboarders. It seems as if her career is coming to an end, but the athlete is is struggling to leave the spotlight.

Documentary about the dark side of Los Angeles.

In this film, outspokenly homosexual filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim has documented his encounters with friends in the New York "underground" arts movement, the better-known of whom are William Burroughs (who says nothing for the camera), Andy Warhol (seen in the distance) and Fernando Arrabal (who is interviewed in Spanish). The emigrants named in the title are notable Germans who left the country before World War II, such as Greta Keller and Grete Mosheim. Reviewers at the time of the film's release considered it to have been a sort of paid vacation for the filmmaker rather than a serious effort. (Clarke Fountain, Rovi)

Educational film about steele production.

To outsiders, Turkmenistan is one of the world's least known countries. For the first time in ten years, a film crew has been free to visit spectacular excavation sites and follow international researchers into areas that have long been off-limits. Once considered the poorest part of the Soviet Union, oil and natural gas have brought new wealth to Turkmenistan today. A little known fact in the West is that 4,000 years ago, the country was home to one of the ancient world's centers of power. Although it flourished around the same time as the advanced civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Margiana empire was later largely forgotten. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the country has been slowly opening up to international researchers, and its astounding cultural heritage is coming to light.

Unfinished early documentary by Ulrich Seidl about a foto shooting with Sonja Kirchberger and Peter Baumann at the Tunisian seaside.

Documentary about a couple who lives on the fringes of German society.

Flug durch die Nacht, shot during Ilona Baltrusch's studies at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin - DFFB, explores the relationship between language and image. The film follows the two protagonists, Gretel Kemeny and Martin Peter, through 1980s nocturnal Berlin.

Short film about petroleum

Carli was shot several times in the horrific attack on a movie theatre by James Holmes. Carli is in financial troubles, so she turns to a dark corner of the internet to make some money out of her misery.

Herman Melville's epic ocean adventure "Moby Dick" is an American masterpiece. But was this stirring tale of violence and revenge simply an allegory, or were there real giants of the deep deliberately attacking whaling ships? With the help of centuries old witness accounts and modern day science, we explain how the legend of the great white whale came to be. Then we determine if the multiple sperm whale assaults on ships in the 19th century were indeed premeditated and coordinated.

Two boys aged 9 and 10, Jan and Christoph, want to visit their grandma, who lives in another town. They travel by train, on their own. They buy their tickets, find the right platform and get on the right train. And they know how to behave on the train. So, as expected, the train trip to Grandma's is a safe affair and great fun for the boys.

Documentary about the struggle for survival of dairy farmers in Germany

Everyone was surprised at the triumph of Hamas in the last Palestinian elelctions, but the bigger surprise was that the women were behind that victory. We follow three Hamas women to try and understand why an Islamist political party, operating in a very conservative society, allows its women to become political, social and even military leaders.

A German Film Award gold medal winning documentary about electro-technics.

A concise & informative biography that is an overview of Queen Victoria’s life from infancy to death.

Interview with Mark of the Devil's star Udo Kier.

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.