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When the pianist Francesco Piemontesi hears an unreleased recording of the pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, it comes as a shock to him. This freedom of playing, these colors and nuances, this virtuosity, which is always presented with a smile, overwhelms him. He decides to explore what he believes he is hearing here: the alchemy of the piano.

SCHICHT (SHIFT) is both a reckoning and a search for traces of the past. Layer by layer the film unfolds the portrait of the filmmaker's family - brought to life by records from private archives - and embarks on a dizzying trip through the shrinking industrial city of Salzgitter, Germany.

A documentary tribute to Switzerland's number one national sport: Swiss wrestling. With a wink but nonetheless serious, Zurich resident and wrestling novice Beat Schlatter guides us through the film as presenter. In search of the soul and fascination of wrestling, he tentatively explores a world completely foreign to him, one marked by a dividing line between city and country, which he attempts to bridge.

Mud, power outages, heavy rain – and yet Wacken draws crowds every year. For over three decades, Wacken Open Air has stood for friendship, perseverance, and a tight-knit community. With metal legends such as Kreator, Doro Pesch, and Motörhead, Wacken turns into an exceptional event – and a home away from home for fans from all over the world.

To avoid a forced marriage, 19-year-old Hala finds refuge across the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria at a military academy where, while learning to fight, she vows to fight to free all women.

In three parts this DIY-documentary focuses on the lives and times of german punks of the generation Y.

Set in New York City’s queer underground sex party scene, Orgy Every Other Day explores the importance of creating space for all the letters of the queer alphabet to collectively experience the liberating potential of expressing and performing sexual desires while always respectfully asking for consent.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was probably Germany’s most significant post-war director. His swift and dramatic demise at the early age of 37 in 1982 left behind a vacuum in European filmmaking that has yet to be filled, as well as a body of unique, multi-layered, and multifarious work of astonishing consistency and rigour. From 1969 onwards, Danish director and film historian Christian Braad Thomsen maintained a close yet respectfully distanced friendship with Fassbinder. The film is based on his personal memories as well as a series of conversations and interviews he held with Fassbinder and his mother, Lilo, in the 1970s.

A feuilletonistic conversation with the movie audience about the question: How do you feel about going to the movies? In general - and especially in summer? What do people expect from movies these days and what criticism do they have on their minds? The interviewees are vacationers of all ages and tastes. The occasion and background for this not entirely serious survey is the 1965 Summer Film Festival, which is captured in a cheerful reportage style. Interviews with actors on the festive opening evening and climax of the film confirm that there is only a relative cinema fatigue. It depends on the quality of the film on offer.

Documentary about refugees in Berlin

The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.

A mockumentary about the life of the german musician and comedian Helge Schneider

Nowadays we associate Johannes Kepler with his famous laws of planetary motion. But the history of his discoveries is a drama of Shakespearian proportions - full of intrigue, passion, depravity and corruption.

In the desolate towns of former Eastern Germany, the life of the people seems to have fossilized. The dissolution of the German Democratic Republic brought their world to a standstill. Three men unite in a community of suffering, with their lives destroyed by reunification. Although from different backgrounds, they join in drowning their sorrows in alcohol. There's no going forward and no going back. A reflection on past, present and future.

A hot summer in Vienna: Kameni Grad - City of Stone. Four groups of young people, whose parents come from the former Yugoslavia: Alma and Mircla, Sascha and Dragan, Nenad and his friends, and Marina and her little brother Branko. A subculture which, full of confidence, integrates itself into the local community, yet without denying its origins.

In focusing his attention on the competitors of Mr Gay Syria, director Ayse Toprak shatters the one-dimensional meaning of “refugee”. Using the pageant as a means of escape from political persecution, the organiser Mahmoud — already given asylum in Berlin — hopes to offer the winner a chance to travel as well as bring international attention to the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT Syrians.

Five cameramen of the DEFA travel with the trawler ROS 206 to its fishing grounds in the Arctic Ocean. The journey to the grounds takes 5,5 days. Day and night the nets are thrown out and pulled aboard again when they are full. After three weeks of hard work the trawler returns to its home port. Here the fish are loaded into refrigerator cars, and the sailors enjoy some days of wll-earned rest.

Nobody captured the atmosphere of 1990s Berlin better than German photographer Daniel Josefsohn, who died in 2016 at the age of 54, leaving his mark in advertising with his irreverent aesthetic and punk sensibility. It was his spontaneous, imperfect images shot for an MTV campaign in 1994 that first made him famous.

After World War II, countless children throughout Germany were sent to health resorts in order to recover; instead they endured systemic abuse. Through survivors’ voices and her own family history, filmmaker Katrin Sikora uncovers this long silenced chapter and its echoes across generations.

"Pictures from the late eighties in the GDR on up to the immediate present in the year 2008 in Germany. What has been left over besieges my mind. All these pictures keep reassembling themselves to make up something which they were originally not made for. They are still in motion. They are becoming history." (Thomas Heise)

“I am a hypochondriac”, admits Rosa Von Praunheim, the icon of the gay movement, right at the beginning at the film. The director, who turned seventy in 2012, is afraid of cancer, and he actually suffers from glaucoma, with osteoarthritis in his big toe. Von Praunheim is interested in alternative medicine and goes on a foray into the scene.

Klaus Lemke steps out of the door of his Munich apartment and stands on Leopoldstrasse, where he has “lived” for many years. His documentary film is an avowedly gaudy declaration of love for Schwabinger Strasse, the people who live there and their realistic language.

Ahmed Malek’s name might have been forgotten by his fellow Algerians but his timeless tunes certainly haven’t. Called the Ennio Morricone of Algiers, he composed music for more than 200 movies, amongst which the most famous films of the Algerian New Wave in the 70s and the 80s can be found. Paloma Colombe, a DJ, digger and documentary director, went to Algiers to meet his daughter, friends and former coworkers. Images of the city by night offer a perfect background to Ahmed Malek’s music. Globetrotter, pioneer of electronic music and of the concept of the home studio, he created a unique sound that truly goes beyond genres and countries.

An in-depth look at the life and career of Bruce Willis, featuring never-before-seen photos and videos from the Willis family collection. Narrated by Bruce Willis.

In August, 1956, Elvis Presley started shooting his first feature film, Love Me Tender. At his side was his manager, Colonel Tom Parker and his just-hired secretary, Trude Forsher. ELVIS AND THE GIRL FROM VIENNA is Trude’s account of how Elvis’ career went from a southern United States singing sensation to a global legend. Over the five years that Trude worked with Elvis and the Colonel, she observed first hand the legendary moments in Elvis life. It is not only the story of Elvis’ rise to fame, but of one of his most personal confidants, who escaped the ravages of WW2 to get the job a million girls dreamed of - Elvis private secretary.

Every year during summer one of the biggest battles of mankind takes place amidst the hillsides of middle earth. Knights, elves and magicians are fighting orcs and the dark powers. What looks like a scene from Lord of the Rings actually takes place in a field in Germany, where thousands of role players meet to plunge into a fantasy world of their own. More than 250.000 people in Germany regularly make this transition. The documentary accompanies five role players in their daily lives and their parallel ones. Where does their yearning for a shared world of fantasy come from? What does this reveal about our hectic, technological life? Sunday warriors is a film about the passion for playing and the ambition to exceed your limits.

In 1948 Pablo Picasso met the hairdresser Eugenio Arias. Both were linked by the fate of emigration. If Picasso initially only had his hair cut by Arias, a deep friendship soon developed.

An offbeat educational film about the natural world, told through the eyes of sheep.

Morbidly beautiful images show the unreasonable working conditions at a rusty factory.

A documentation during four days of the creation of a Playboy magazine centerfold photograph from start to finish.

„The Fabulous Insects – Ants“ shows the diversity, beauty and exciting strategies of ants in their respective habitats. Whether in the tropics of South America or in the native climes of Europe - the world of ants is full of surprises. The biomass of ants and humans in the world is about the same. Next to us, ants are probably the most adaptable creatures on the planet. Whether rainforest, savannah, forests or moors - ants populate every terrestrial habitat. You can observe particularly exciting natural history not only in the distant tropics, but also in densly populated Central Europe.

Ten years after Fukushima nuclear accident, a familiy returns every month at their home to measure the radiation with a Geiger counter.

Annedore takes care of orphan birds. They give her that which humans througout her turbulent life could never give her: love.

Peter Maffay and his wife explore Iceland.

A film about the American artist Mark Lombardi who created graphic artwork laying out the powers and opaque network of the global elites from the economic and finance sectors, as well as terrorists; and whose masterpieces crossed wires with the FBI after the attacks on September 11th. Lombardi had hung himself one year earlier in his New York studio. Who was this Mark Lombardi, a man whose work was so explosive that even terrorist hunters were using it as research? The film portrays an incredibly brilliant artist who took on the social function of a watchdog by using public information and arranging it to expose the grand illegal practices in the globalized world.

Thomas Bernhard in Madrid.

In this film, we follow footballer George Best over a 90-minute match against Coventry City, which took place on 12th September 1970. There is no soundtrack and no interview overlaid, just Best doing what he did best - playing football.

What is money? What are debts? What are the consequences of both? And how can images be found for them? In Oeconomia, Carmen Losmann undertakes a journey in the strategic heartlands of neoliberal policy.

The film follows five senior athletes along their biggest challenge - maturity. As all of them are between 80 and 100 years old it is a race against time and personal degeneration. Nevertheless they are united in one common goal - to take part in the track and field World Masters Championships. Life will end soon - so what?

Successfully completed your studies - now what? Raffly already has a lucrative job offer from a large German company, but neither an apartment nor a work permit.

A portrait of the Austrian avant-garde artist Otto Mühl/Muehl (1925-2013), whose work combined sex, violence, gastronomy and bodily effluence with unbridled abandon.

Katharina Thalbach is one of the few Germans to hold the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. This highest award from the French Ministry of Culture was bestowed on the actress and director in 2019. This award is no coincidence, as Katharina Thalbach and France have had a long relationship. The documentary shows her eventful life and work.

Each night the only border crossing between India and Pakistan on a 1000km stretch becomes the sight of an extraordinary event. Thousands of people gather to witness the ritual closing of the border, after which the masses get as close as possible to the gate to greet their former neighbors. This "festival" is therefore on the one hand a celebration of the partition, but on the other hand also the only connecting element. What do the terms separation, home and proximity mean to the people on both sides?

‘Tangerine Dream is science fiction!’ declares band leader Edgar Froese who died in January, 2015 aged 70. For almost fifty years he and his band ‘Tangerine Dream’ explored sound and its effect on our emotions. This film about one of Germany’s first electronic bands kicks off with the young Berlin musicians who were as inspired by the space age of the 1960s, with its rocket launchings and visions of the future, as they were by their own heartbeat, on which Froese also based compositions. Aided by the Moog and other synthesisers Froese (and various band members) revolutionised popular music. His explorations took him into the worlds of classical, new and film music. He preferred to visualise moods rather than create clearly structured songs. A blend of amateur footage, interviews with band members, relatives, friends and colleagues such as Jean-Michel Jarre that creates a comprehensive portrait of an artistic pioneer.

Jan Gerdes is a third-generation dairy farmer, but he struggles with his conscience when the milk yield decreases and he has to sell his cows to the slaughterhouse. After suffering a burn-out, he decides to give up his farm. On the day his last cows are due to be transported to the slaughterhouse, he finds that there's no room for twelve of the cows. Instead of ordering another transport, he and his partner Karin Mück decide to keep them. This is the birth of 'Hof Butenland' - the first cow retirement home in Germany.

The armed forces of the Third Reich, particularly the German army, are presented as an efficient system of bodies and machines at the seventh Nazi Party Rally that occurred in Nuremberg in 1935.

Fidgeting fish, dancing on the train, big stages – we scroll through a phone gallery. How do you find your own identity between ever-changing trends? When do the borders between real and virtual life blur? A documentary about a self-made musician who wants to stand her ground in a digital world.

Black dust, shrill metallic noises, dark tunnels, muscular bodies – all that is the past. At the end of 2018, extraction of coal throughout Germany came to an end. That same year, the voices of the emerging climate protest movement Fridays for Future grew louder. Against the backdrop of these media and socio-political events, the film follows five miners on their tragic, humorous and heartwarming search for a new role in life.

On stage since she was a toddler, Googoosh has been an icon of Iranian pop culture since the 1970s. Her progressive style and raw singing talent attracted worldwide acclaim and saw her performing alongside the likes of Tina Turner and Ray Charles. But the star's career came to an abrupt halt after the Islamic Revolution, which banned women from singing in public. Googoosh was placed under house arrest, where she remained for the next two decades. Niloufar Taghizadeh's documentary, which includes interviews with the charismatic singer (now in her seventies, but still performing and advocating for women and girls) and arresting archival footage, offers both a loving portrait of a national icon and a fascinating historical and cultural record of Iran.

The sun sends us light and energy, enabling life and growth. But it also causes scientists great concern: gigantic, unpredictable solar storms are increasingly threatening our power supply and networks. The US space agency NASA has built a space probe to investigate the causes of these mysterious storm phenomena.

Heidegger in conversation with Bhikkhu Maha Mari.

Combining archival footage with dramatized episodes based on real accounts, this film examines everyday life in Nazi Germany through the experiences of ordinary citizens. Directed by Eberhard Itzenplitz and Erwin Leiser, it traces how conformity, opportunism, fear, and routine compromise drew “ordinary” men and women into complicity with the regime, revealing the banality of evil at work in daily life.