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The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.

They call themselves Fancy Bear, Cozy Bear or Voodoo Bear. Elite units of the Russian secret services are hidden behind these code names. They are among the most dangerous hackers in the world. The bears were already in the computer of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015, interfered in the US election campaign in 2016 and are currently influencing the war in Ukraine. The makers of the successful YouTube channel “Simplicissimus” in co-production with funk and SWR are back and show the destructive potential of state hacking with this documentary. With the help of leading German hackers, cyberspace experts and a lot of humor, they delicately demystify the Russian bears: Who are the people behind them? How do they operate? And what makes them so incredibly dangerous?

A portrait of the Spanish-German actor Daniel Brühl, a versatile performer capable of moving easily from the gentlest to the darkest role.

A documentary about the history and the urban development of the city of Erlangen in northern Bavaria, Germany.

Based on interviews with leading Neonazis and Holocaust deniers, as well as archival material from conspiratorial meetings, the film briefly reveals the state of the German Neonazi scene.

Memory is a collaboration with musician Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), exploring the relationship between a musician and filmmaker and their personal reflection on memories. From Super 8 home movies and entirely handmade, this film explores familiar memories, the present moment combined with past experiences and how it all seems to evade from our present memory.

Who was Helene Weigel? Using impressive archive material, the film follows the convinced communist, acting icon, and free spirit from her early days in theater to her escape from the Nazi regime to the founding and management of the Berliner Ensemble. The result is a powerful portrait that finally puts the “woman at Brecht's side” in the spotlight.

A three hour documentary about the tenants of the 24th floor in a high-rise building in the Frankfurter Berg settlement who speak about their living conditions and their lives.

A Swiss political documentary about the Zurich youth unrest of 1968

In this German film, inmates guilty of a prison murder are put on trial before a court consisting of other inmates. The trial is given the full formal treatment it might receive in a civilian setting. The key point in this film is that these are the actual murderers admitting their actual crimes before a judges' panel consisting of their peers: actual prisoners at the same institution. Having no force of law, the trial proceeds without reaching a conclusion. That is something the viewer is asked to provide. This movie won a Silver Bear from the 1974 Berlin Film Festival.

Documentary film describes the motives of 3 West German families that led them to flee the Federal Republic of Germany or to move to the German Democratic Republic. To offer their children a secure future - that is the main motive for many West German parents to flee. The social security of citizens in the GDR and the willingness to welcome citizens from the Federal Republic are emphasized. The film is enlivened in its own way by the original soundtracks of the people interviewed, as well as the Cold War-style commentary. The final sentence is typical: "Since 1949 there has been a state of working people on German soil, here the lessons of the past have been learned, here is the peaceful, better Germany, the Germany that belongs to the children, to whom the future belongs".

The compilation film looks back on four decades of East German film production to mark the 40th anniversary of DEFA. Beginning with the founding event of DEFA on May 17, 1946, it continues with film clips from many test recordings of the first feature films after licensing. Well-known directors, screenwriters, actors and musicians accompany the historical newsreel and feature film excerpts and thus bear witness to the reconstruction work in the early post-war years. A documentary that reflects the diversity of DEFA productions in the film and newsreel sector.

Using archive film material never seen before, Hollywood veteran Leon Askin portrays Adolf Lanz (1874-1954), the man who gave Hitler his ideas.

22-year-old Kei refuses to conform to the Japanese achievement-oriented society. He is homeless by choice, living on the streets and under the bridges of Kyoto. His love for nature and music keeps him afloat in his dream world. However, when he runs out of money, he is forced to face reality.

Yara gazes at a floating rock. She walks towards it and examines it from every angle – a surreal encounter. As an actress in exile in Brazil, on the day of her performance in Brasília, memory and performance as well as the past and the present become blurred. This fills her with a longing for her distant homeland in Syria.

Suicide is one of the world's leading causes of death, with almost 800,000 people taking their own lives every year, not counting those who go unrecorded. What drives people to take their own lives, and how can they be prevented from doing so? This documentary attempts to provide some answers.

This brand new documentary takes a closer look at the production history, unique style, and lasting appeal of Fat City, as well as Leonard Gardner's novel that inspired it. Included in it are new interviews with actors Stacy Keach and Candy Clark, casting director Fred Roos, and camera assistant Gary Vidor.

Go behind the scenes of Edward Berger’s WWI epic and see how the cast and crew crafted its amazing authenticity — from the sets to the SFX prosthetics.

Documentary about the rise of the Video Home System in Germany.

A knife in the pocket, adrenaline in the blood and only one dream in mind: to be a gangster - and the biggest one at that. Yehya was 15 years old and close to realizing his dream when he met the filmmaker Christian Stahl in the stairwell. Yehya wasn't just the nice boy from next door, he was also "the Boss of Sonnenallee" - one of the gangster runners of the Berlin borough of Neukölln. And gangster runners want to make it in the gangster world. In the eyes of the authorities, he is an "intensive offender"; in his own eyes, Yehya is "one of the top ten of Neukölln. I got my own prosecutor!"

Rustic weapons, centuries old traps; wreckage of U.S. bombers, a perforated “bulletproof” vest are exposed in the museums of Hanoi. “The neglected free visit to the Hanoi museums cost the American people 56,369 killed people and 146 billion dollars.”

One of the first US born conductors to receive worldwide fame, Leonard Bernstein is an exceptional composer and certainly not only due to The West Side Story. Instead of concentrating exclusively on his most famous work, Thomas von Steinaecker sets out to paint a complete picture of Bernstein. Thus, the documentary focusses on the American’s less known later works and on three compositions in particular: his Mass, the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the great final opera A Quiet Place. The film paints a vivid picture of the multitalented Bernstein, struggling with his role as composer and conductor, tackling the tension between successes and flops, between the politics of his time and his own liberal humanitarian claim. It looks back on Bernstein’s major achievements, such as his acclaimed conducting of Mahler and his involvement in the Young People’s Concerts, and it shows Bernstein’s work with young aspiring musicians as well as his political commitment.

Several high-budget epic films became Omar Sharif (1932-2015) a film star. He was an actor, but also a bridge player, a womanizer, a bon vivant; he was a man full of contradictions, who enjoyed card games more than movies; he was an eternal nomad who spent half his life in a hotel.

Six directors, one film: in episodes, they recall their experiences at the end of the GDR and the fate of a family under National Socialism. They talk about making films despite censorship, about the search for opportunities. They tell of losses, of leaving, of staying and of love in exile. A film about the longing for home and the endurance of friendships.

While China and the USA are racing away on the issue of digitisation, Germany seems to be lagging behind. Economically and politically. The online retailer Zalando wants to catch up. "Neuland" takes a look behind the scenes of the digital company.

Drawing on a location test filmed in Uganda and an email exchange with the scout, this short film captures cinema’s ties to land and its entanglement with colonial imaginaries, binding the fiction of filmmaking with state-building.

A place of biological superlatives with a flora and fauna that have only just begun to be researched: Lord Howe Island, between Australia and New Zealand. This is the first documentary on what may be the most isolated nature reserve on the planet.

Short documentary by Gunter Otto

Documentary about juvenile delinquency in East Germany.

Mr. Bachmann And His Class explores the close bond between an elementary school teacher and his students. His unconventional methods clash with the complex social and cultural realities of the provincial German industrial town they live in.

Hannah Arendt's views on Jewish identity, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and authoritarian-totalitarian systems seem more relevant than ever. Together with biographer Thomas Meyer, this documentary takes us back to the time of her exile in Paris. It was there, on the banks of the Seine, that she laid the foundations for her later works, which would bring her international renown.

A woman searching for the traces of her mother in herself. Live, re-live.

A journey into the American Wild West, between Past and Present, from Buffalo Bill's last gleaming hopes, to the Native Americans resurrection.

In the film, Antonio Skármeta, who had to flee Chile in 1973 due to the military dictatorship, interviews various Chilean artists who are also living in exile in Europe. How are work opportunities changing for artists far away from their homeland? What problems do they face? What do they gain from their special situation?

A look inside the work of Breaking the Silence, an organization of former IDF combat soldiers who collect and publish testimonies of soldiers who served in the occupied territories. For six months, director Silvina Landsmann, camera in hand, accompanied the staff of the organization. The many hours of footage have been refined into a film that dives into the heart of Breaking the Silence’s work: guided tours of Hebron and the surrounding area, public lectures and house meetings, internal staff meetings and media strategy. All the while the organization is forced to justify its very existence, both internally and to the broader public, and to justify its place in the political debate. The Good Soldier raises questions about Israel’s dynamic mainstream and the challenges of confronting it.

Documentary film(mast)er Jan visits the (playing) drunk slave HD.

500 rooms and thousands of daily visitors: the Medici’s treasure chamber containing icons from antiquity to the late Baroque period is a place full of (art) history. It survived two world wars but must now reinvent itself in order to remain an enduring audience magnet.

In the wake, among others, of Joris Ivens (the testamentary Une histoire de vent , 1989), Martin Putz seeks to frame the wind. Or the impossible bet, however successful, to capture its hypnotic manifestations, by filming the things and humans that stand in its way and use their driving forces.

Life on the Danube is essentially determined by two factors: the river itself and the often strange idiosyncrasies of the people who live along its banks. And they are multifarious: fishermen and graveyard wardens, Buddhist monks, allotment holders on Danube Island, stranded shippers, tramps and soldiers. All linked by the great current against which they swim.

A Beirut rooftop conversation about living with Sexually Transmitted Infections opens into a cinematic dialogue, as Danielle and Moe draw raw and vibrant images from their personal experiences. Danielle filmed herself in sober and melancholic images to grasp what is going on, while Moe plays with memories and sensations of a queer body “invaded” by a virus. While they engage with five actresses and actors to embody the testimonies of individuals who also lived with STIs, “forbidden” stories begin to exist and enter a collaborative exploration of intimacy, bodies, stigma and shame.

Documentary about the East German director Frank Beyer, a remarkable man with a remarkable career whose films should be much better known.

For most people, "the bee" is the honey bee, busy producing flowers and honey and wax. But very few people know that there are more than 560 other bee species in Central Europe, most of which live as solitary creatures. The behavior of wild bees is as diverse as their appearance, size and habitat

Documentary about American filmmaker Abraham Polonsky.

A City constantly threatened by war in a never-ending nightmare.

A summer’s day in a former German military barrack: children forced to flee Ukraine have found refuge here. In their games, they discover military symbols from the past and link them to their experiences.