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With the help of elaborate re-enactments, TV star Thomas Gottschalk tells the dramatic story of King's life: his journey from alcoholic, penniless and completely impoverished author to multi-millionaire who was almost fatally injured in a car accident.

Two years after the Panama Papers scandal, two investigative journalists at Germany’s largest newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, are ready with a series of new revelations while researchin the assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galicia and a mysterious arms dealer linked to the Iranian nuclear missile programme. When a secret video gets leaked to them in 2019, the journalists have the opportunity to uncover a new scandal, today known as ‘Ibiza-Gate’, involving the Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache.

In 79 A.D., Mount Vesuvius erupted, killing 2,000 people. This documentary asks what happened next as experts explore Ancient Rome's crisis management.

The final part of the Creativity Trilogy explores existential threats our world is facing. An inspiring film about imagination's power and a hopeful glimpse into the future.

Documentary about female opera stars.

Documentary about the messie Günther Hilmer, in whose house the garbage is piled up to the ceiling. For him, trash is more of a passion than a vice, but his particular penchant for garbage has negative consequences for his social life.

Famed Swiss architect and artist Robert Maillart was renowned for his concrete bridges; this documentary examines the elegant design of his engineering masterpieces, which, the film argues, embrace both functionality and aesthetics. Instead of following a traditional journalistic structure, director Heinz Emigholz's spellbinding film reads more like ethereal visual poetry, allowing the beauty of Maillart's work to speak for itself.

A behind-the-scenes documentary of "The Black Rider/Der schwarze Reiter" or "The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets" a "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits, and writer William S. Burroughs. The story is based on a German folktale called "Der Freischütz", which had previously been made into an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. Here we meet the makers and the ensemble of the Thalia Theater production in Hamburg that opened on March 31, 1990.

Michael Scholly is released 28 years after being sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He had three years to prepare for this moment. But the world outside the prison walls has fundamentally changed in his absence and Scholly's ideas and expectations have little in common with reality. Questions arise: Can Scholly meet the demands placed on him? Is Scholly ready for freedom? His first year after discharge was supposed to provide answers - but the answer came sooner than expected.

Discovering the world’s most prestigious orchestras. In this episode: founded in 1888, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra continues to inspire its young conductor, Klaus Mäkelä. Before him, great composers worked closely with the orchestra, including Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky and Gustav Mahler.

Leopards are considered to be extremely shy big cats. Only a few animals can match the elegance of these feline predators. The cautious hunters are rarely seen in the wild for more than a few seconds. The cats can be observed more extensively when they rest asleep in a tree and recover from the mostly nocturnal hunt. But a leopardess has switched to hunting in broad daylight. Its home along the brook bed of the Olare Orok offers everything a mother needs to protect and nourish its offspring: picturesque rocks and dense bush, a landscape in which the big cat can disappear in seconds to sneak up on potential prey, which includes warthogs and antelopes. But hyenas and lions are always ready to contest for its territory and nourishment. The renowned wildlife filmmaker Reinhard Radke managed to capture astonishing insights into the social life and hunting tactics of the ambush hunters in the Maasai Mara.

The greatest adventure of his life begins for Checker Tobi on a pirate ship in the middle of the sea. There he discovers a message in a bottle containing a riddle. If he solves it, he will reveal the secret of our planet. An exciting scavenger hunt around the world begins! Tobi climbs the crater of a fire-breathing volcano, dives with sea dragons in the Pacific, explores the loneliest parts of the Arctic with climate researchers and ends up in India at the driest time of the year. In Mumbai, he becomes a Bollywood star before the monsoon transforms the megacity. Tobi finally realizes that he had the solution to the puzzle in mind throughout his journey.

German Documentary on Clint Eastwood

A documentary of early airplane pilot and WW1 fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, famously known as The Red Baron.

The three siblings Hassan, Lial and Maradona are successfull dancers and musicians. But their family is in danger of being deported out of Germany. The teenagers plan to use their artistic talents to save the family. However the pressure has put a strain on their relationships, and the way to success is long and uncertain.

Documentary about the forming of a second Buena Vista Social Club, the world famous Cuban band. Barbaro, a Cuban taxi driver, meets the singer Pio Leyva, one of the stars from BVS Club, and convinces him to form a new band with the most promising young musicians from Cuba.

Jonas Mekas weaves an elegiac diary film from his 1971–72 return to Lithuania, chronicling a visit to his birthplace of Semeniškiai after decades in exile. Blending personal memory with documentary observation, the film becomes both a portrait of homecoming and a meditation on displacement, family, and the passage of time.

Rosa von Praunheim follows the lives and existential struggles of three contrasting German emigrant women in New York City. The protagonists not only tell of their exciting lives in the hectic metropolis, but many dramatic events also take place during filming.

The greatness, fall and renaissance of Hammer, the flagship company of British popular cinema, mainly from 1955 to 1968. Tortured women and sadistic monsters populated oppressive scenarios in provocative productions that shocked censorship and disgusted critics but fascinated the public. Movies in which horror was shown in offensive colors: dreadful stories, told without prejudices, that offered fear, blood, sex and stunning performances.

It was one of the great crimes of the Second World War: from 1941 to 1944, a total of 872 days, the siege and starvation of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht on Hitler's orders lasted. Over a million people fell victim to the blockade, most of them dying of hunger. Countless of these starving people wrote diaries with the last of their strength, and cameramen filmed in the paralyzed city. Evidence from the hell of the siege, many of the film recordings, but above all the written memories on which this documentary on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation is based, remained under lock and key after the war. The voices of those who had suffered through this terrible time should not be heard by anyone, because they did not fit the pathos of the Leningrad heroic song that was officially sung. Most of the recordings come from women. The writers feared neither the enemy nor the Communist Party or Stalin, who often proved incompetent in providing for the population.

From different perspectives, the viewer sees the appearance of the newly built Reichsautobahnen: Pictures from the lowlands, the Swabian Alb and many other places.

After the Russian invasion, a young Ukrainian woman becomes an accidental TikTok star when sharing her funny takes on an awful situation.

Koekie, Fluksie, Sanna and Jo-Marie live together in a safehouse in Bredasdorp, a small town in South Africa. This community of around 15,000 has been shaken by a series of rapes and murders of women. Community worker Lana O’Neill felt compelled to create a safe place for the most vulnerable women, so that what happened to Anene, Kayde, Sulnita and Jodene doesn’t happen to them too.

Documentary on Lars von Trier

Long-term portrait of the burglar and bank robber Bernhard Kimmel, who became known in the 1960s as "Al Capone of the Palatinate", cracking up to three safes in one night with his gang. Director Peter Fleischmann met Kimmel in 1970, when he had just completed his first, almost ten-year prison sentence. He interviewed him and became friends with him. Kimmel resumed his criminal career until 1982, when he shot a policeman after robbing a savings bank and injured another so badly that the latter was left paraplegic - a tough test for the friendship between the director and the robber turned murderer. Kimmel was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released on parole after 22 years - and Fleischmann completed his portrait.

Markus Becker is hit by a car, dragged along, his head bashed on a curb and he falls into a coma. The doctors don’t believe that the 45-year-old will survive the next five to ten days. His father makes preparations for the funeral. Markus’ brother Michael refuses to accept this fate and begins an extraordinary battle. In his brother’s apartment he seals Markus’ clothes to preserve the smell. He records the neighbors’ voices. Every day, Michael exposes his brother to things that are familiar and films everything that is part of Markus’ life with a DV camera. He wants to keep him in his world and to bring this world to his bedside. He documents every step of Markus’ development, risking his own life in the process, wishing that his brother will one day regain the ability to lead a normal life. This full-length documentary accompanies Michael Becker for 10 years on his unwavering and creative mission to bring his brother Markus back to life.

In 1976, the director documented the sensational "Klingenberger Exorcism" about the death of the student Anneliese Michel. The bishop of Würzburg once ordered the official exorcism of the devil inside her. In the course of the research, old audio cassettes were secured, a complete audio documentation of this exorcism, highly explosive material that provided the impetus for the documentary. The recordings, most of which can only be understood after technical equalization, show that the deadly exorcism was by no means just the mistreatment of an epilepsy patient, but a calculated staging by conservative clerics in order to overturn planned reforms. In the middle of the preparations for shooting, news broke of a new case in which a bishop officially exorcised the devil from a young woman. A woman who wants to complete Anneliese Michel's mission and show the world that Satan lives. The film accompanies her.

The Macedonian Soltana is the last original inhabitant of Europe. She still remembers the first automobile: she thought it was a terrible monster. She is neither capable of reading nor writing. At the age of 18, her family takes her to Austria, where she has the opportunity to marry a rich man. No use to think twice about it - Soltana obeys. As a woman, she says, she has no alternative. In Soltana's life no big events took place. But those who look closely are bound to discover tremendous openness and vitality in the small steps of her life.

Tim, Michael, and Dennis are artists, photographers, and filmmakers. They have one goal: to travel to Antarctica, capture the adventure on camera, and turn it into a feature film. They are willing to risk everything to achieve this goal. Without a production company or concrete buyers, but with a great deal of recklessness and two years of unpaid investment time, they set off for Antarctica. This is the only way they can find out whether you can really achieve anything if you want it badly enough. They want to capture their journey with all its ups and downs.

Documentary film.

“Let nature be nature” is the philosophy of the Bavarian Forest National Park. Despite massive resistance, this vision has become a groundbreaking showcase project. Because humans do not interfere with nature, the former commercial forests grow into a primeval forest, a unique ecosystem and a refuge for biodiversity. People from all over the world come here. They are looking for answers to the question of why we need more wild nature and what we can learn from it to preserve forests for future generations in times of climate change.

In 1988, Cynthia Beatt and the young Tilda Swinton embarked on a filmic journey along the Berlin Wall into little-known territory. The film is now an unusual document. 21 years later, in June 2009, Beatt & Swinton re-traced the line of the Wall that once isolated West Berlin. This film depicts this poetic passage through varied landscapes, this time on both sides of the former Wall.

Documentary by Helke Sander, in collaboration with Harun Farocki (among others), about the campaign of the West German New Left against the publishing house Springer, particularly its control and manipulation of the news.

Dennis and his filmmaker friend decide to join his parents in Tuscany where they are spending the summer holiday. Dennis is not in the best of moods. His past and his choices seem to loom over him, to haunt him even in the golden and warm sun of Tuscany. His friend tries to unlock his silences, unsuccessfully. Dennis seems to be hurting. Only skating feels a bit like a momentary peace of mind. His parents do not ask, and Dennis does not tell.

Ribnitz-Damgarten, the jewel at the coast of the Baltic Sea, is located directly at the Saaler Bodden, between Stralsund and Rostock. The town and its surrounding area are made for vacationing. This documentary from 1989 also shows the other side, like, for example, how the increasing population density and the industrial production influence the ecological balance of the region. A community for the protection of the Bodden landscape is actively making an effort for conservation. At the institute for deep-sea fishery, research about the fish population is conducted, and agriculture as well is looking for solutions to preserve an intact environment.

Slovenia, the country between the Adriatic Sea and the Alps, is like a continent in the smallest of spaces. Just half the size of Switzerland, Slovenia's castles, streams and mountain lakes are just a stone's throw away from each other. The Slovenians are proud of their beautiful country, the plateaus and Lake Bled, which they confidently refer to as “little St. Moritz”.

Black Deutschland is a made-for-television documentary film, directed by Oliver Hardt and produced by de-Arte. The documentary is filmed in different cities in Germany and features people from all across the black diaspora who reside in Germany.

The film tells the story of Laxenburg from 13th century, when it was used for hunting and fishing trips by the imperial Habsburg family, to modern day, a popular summer resort and a bustling international community. Today Laxenburg is also home to IIASA, the Austrian Film Archive, and the International Anti-Corruption Academy. The film will also feature these organizations, their history, and the important work they do in the field of research and diplomacy that goes far beyond Austria's borders.

16 young people are doing their two-week lifeguard service on the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn. They navigate between responsibility, belonging to a group and personal self-discovery, while more and more non-swimmers go swimming.

The Norwegian fjords are among the most impressive landscapes in Europe. In the deep, cold waters lies a surprisingly rich underwater world: from vast coral reefs full of luminous sea creatures to herring orcas and humpback whales. The prize-winning nature filmmaker Jan Haft reveals the special and enchanting richness hidden in the dark water. In the deep fjords, animals and plants survive in a fascinating society that is being portrayed for the first time. Fjord is an intimate portrait of a unique wilderness.

Germany. Summer. Soccer World Cup 2006: A nation experiences a summer fairytale. Germany, 18 years later. The UEFA Euro 2024. A changed country. And yet another happy and peaceful summer fairytale? Esther Sedlaczek takes the audience on a journey through Germany 2024 and paints a sporting, entertaining and thought-provoking picture of the state of the "soccer nation".

The extraordinary story of Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940), creator of Nils Holgersson, a memorable and legendary literary character, and the first female storyteller to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1909); a woman as pioneering in her life as in her remarkable work.

An environmental spy infiltrates the global syndicate for illegal timber trading. With the aid of a hidden camera he documents the chain of illegal activities, from harvesting of the wood to the marketing of “washed” products in supermarkets. This turns out to be an excellent motor for political change.

Does Germany still have control over its asylum policy? Michael Kyrath disagrees. State failure and loss of control must end. Kyrath lost his 17-year-old daughter Ann-Marie to a Palestinian asylum seeker who stabbed her and her boyfriend multiple times on a train in Brokstedt two years ago. Since his daughter's death, Michael Kyrath has been lobbying the media and politicians for more control and more removals. In Stuttgart, the reporters are on the road with a police patrol policing a knife-free zone, and the Danish Minister of Migration explains how the Danes have adapted their asylum policy. Presenter Julia Ruhs is also in Aschaffenburg, where a child and a 41-year-old man died in a knife attack in January 2025. She visits the daycare group and speaks with the association's chairman. The documentary report under the new banner KLAR explores the question of what needs to be changed in Germany's asylum policy.

A psychiatrist, specialized in investigating profound sexual problems, introduces some shocking study cases of psycho-erotic trauma.

There were many who smiled about PRINCE CHARLES becoming a 'green' Prince. Quite a few of them thought that his ideas were just crazy. Together with DAVID WILSON, the farm manager, the Prince developed several strategies to increase the vitality of the soil and to promote biodiversity. The film features the inspiring Prince Charles and the dedicated farmer Wilson, who both share a common vision and mission: organic farming.

British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the world's most translated author: her heroes, private detective Hercule Poirot and amateur sleuth Miss Marple, are known the world over. But who is the woman behind her bestsellers? A biographical search for clues, the unraveling of an iridescent personality whose existence and works were shaped by the tragic history of the 20th century: the eventful life of the Queen of Crime.

The advance of civilization has always depended on the few courageous individuals who are willing to risk reputation and life to seek out the new. This program chronicles the story of some of the world's pathfinders and innovators in a variety of fields, from Madame Curie and Sir Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein. Archival photographs, film clips, interviews, re-enactments, and scholarly commentary are used to tell the story of the discoverers.

The North Sea, the largest sea on our doorstep, has many faces: wide tidal environments, high dunes, flat holms and rugged coastlines. Its beaches attract every season not only tourists but also countless seals. And beneath the cool sea surface hides a varied and fascinating underwater world: whether majestic basking before the chalk cliffs of Dover or combative gray seals on the beach of Helgoland, whether mighty squid on the Dutch Oosterschelde, or creepy Greenland shark in the Fjords of Norway.

The Darkhad and Soyon Uriyanghai peoples live in a vast valley in Northern Mongolia, much as their ancestors have for centuries. "Taiga" is the record of a long period spent by the German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger among these people.

At the 1954 FIFA World Cup in Switzerland, we see the red-hot favourites Hungary, led by the legendary Ferenc Puskás eventually beaten by West Germany 3-2 in a classic final.

Luciano Berriatúa documentary on the making of Murnau’s "Faust."

It all started with a small exercise book. Its page were checkered with the courageous testimonies of 300 Central African women, girls and men. They reveal what Congolese mercenaries did to them. On their own initiative, they gathered together their testimonies in this book.

AIDS victims and activists cope with hardship and society’s ignorance.

Filmed just over a century after the first tank battle in 1918, this documentary series explores how the vehicles forever changed warfare.