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A historical analysis of how groups such as the Nazi’s may use language, symbols, and religious connotation in order to come to power. It raises questions that deserve in depth analysis and consideration. Questions include: Where do legends expand our thinking and where do they bury it? When does spiritual pursuit suddenly turn into fanaticism and violence? Last, have we as a society learned from our past, and if so have forgotten the lessons of the 20th Century? Are we now embarking on a new level only to learn the same old lessons about humanity again? In addressing these questions we are taken into the back drop of the history of Germany beginning in the late 1800’s through the late 20th Century at the eve of the 21st. “A society that does not take archetypes, myths, and symbols seriously will possibly be jumped by them from behind.”

Dammbeck, himself an alumnus of the Leipzig Academy for Graphic and Book Design, presents the origins of the new German realism developed by the so-called Leipzig School, which took place in the context of socialist-realist dogma in the GDR before the Wall was built in 1961. After the Wall came down in 1989, what happened to the major Leipzig School painters Werner Tübke and Bernhard Heisig, who had been called “Dürer’s red heirs” by West German journalists in the 1970s? In the film, Tübke, Heisig, and former GDR officials who were involved with the cultural scene in Leipzig at the time talk about modernism, conformism, political pressure, party discipline, personal claims, and fading memory. The documentary paints an insightful, often critical picture of early East German art history.

Documentary about the twin sister Jutta and Gisela Schmidt. In the late sixties the two women rebelled against middle class society as if they gave vent to a new kind of art. They became active in the underground communist party KPD and showed a heart-felt interest in the colour red, the aesthetics of the revolution. Soon, though, the twins quit their experiments in Germany. They left their husbands and went to Rome, where they met the fabulously wealthy Paul Getty III, and soon things got really out of hand.

A film that describes the love-hate relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, the deep trust between the director and the actor, and their independently and simultaneously hatched plans to murder one another.

In BLUE-EYED, we join a group of 40 teachers, police, school administrators and social workers in Kansas City - blacks, Hispanics, whites, women and men. The blue-eyed members are subjected to pseudo-scientific explanations of their inferiority, culturally biased IQ tests and blatant discrimination. In just a few hours under Ms. Elliott's withering regime, we watch grown professionals become despondent and distracted, stumbling over the simplest commands.

Shortly after the Gulf War, oil fires were raging all through Kuwait. In the week before this sea of fire would be extinguished, Werner Herzog filmed this apocalyptic landscape with its murky skies, scorched earth and capricious flames.

Seldom does a documentary film accomplish so much as Beruf Neonazi. Aside from the rather frightening look into the current world of holocaust denial and pro Hitler ideology, the contents of the film were used as evidence to secure a court conviction.

In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.

Schmidt follows the 27 miles of the “street of life” to Pacific Palisades, where the boulevard ends at the ocean. While interviews with celebrities from show and film document the well-known glamorous side of Sunset Boulevard, Schmidt also witnesses the transformation in the wake of a gigantic investment boom

A German documentary on Hong Kong cinema.

German/French TV documentary portraying Danish film director Lars von Trier.

The first life story of one of the "children of Golzow", continued beyond the "Wende" as an independent feature-length film, which tells of the career of the first hero of our first film, using the rich material available from Jürgen, who became a painter and upholsterer, and "his" Golzow, where he still lived at the time.

A revealing and devastating portrait of a trio of aspiring real-life Viennese models. Vivian will stop at nothing to be a magazine cover girl. Lisa fills her time with routine plastic surgery and cocaine binges, while innocent Tanja focuses on the mystical through tarot cards, yoga, and raw animal energy.

Documentary that follows the lives of several Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during WWII.

In the small town of Rechnitz a terrible crime against humanity was performed during the holocaust. Until now, no-one dares to talk about it.

Short film about the profession geologist

Pepe Mujica, now a member of the Uruguayan parliament, and others of the Tupamaros recount the history of this urban guerrilla group: their use of armed intervention and illegal acts--even kidnapping and murder, their imprisonment and escapes, and their transition to a legal political party.

Portraits of students of Berlin Film School.

Documentary examining Bokassa's rule in the Central African Republic using the testimony of witnesses and visits to key sites.

Children from socially disadvantaged families, either placed in care or admitted voluntarily, tell their stories and share their hopes. After reunification, they are released into the harsh reality of East Germany.

A global television broadcast of the event in which former Pink Floyd leader singer and composer Roger Waters led an all-star cast in a mammoth benefit performance of his acclaimed concept album, The Wall. Set in Berlin, Germany less than a year after the destruction of the hated Berlin Wall, Waters was accompanied by disparate talents such as Cyndi Lauper, James Galway, Joni Mitchell and Albert Finney in the classic dark musical tale of a rock star's descent into madness and back.

A rare gem of cinematic storytelling that weaves docudrama, fictional reenactment, and experimental photography into a powerful, reflective work on the early days of German cinema. The film tells the story of the Skladanowsky Brothers, the German-born duo responsible for inventing the "bioskop", an early version of the film projector.

A portrait of the Hamburg ticket manufacturing company Beckerbillett.

German director Werner Schroeter invited his favourite opera singers to a 13th century abbey near Paris. There was no pre-planned action. There was no script, no continuity. On the other hand, there were precise constraints that provided the rules of the game: the setting, the Abbey of Royaumont, and the chosen participants. Each singer came accompanied by a person of his or her choice, and worked on an aria chosen by the director.

Designed primarily for non-Turkish viewers, Tolda Örnek's documentary has a portentous narration by Sir Donald Sinden, focusing mostly on Atatürk's qualities as a leader as well as an inspiration to others. His shortcomings (drinking and smoking too much, as well as an inability to relate to his wife) are not overlooked, but Örnek suggests that they were chiefly due to his obsession with work. He had a lot to do in a very short time and achieved it.

Lucy, who is already human-like, claims that the first humans were mothers: The mother built a nest to secure the child when it became too heavy to carry. This is how she invented the house. She penetrated the dense branches with her voice to maintain contact with the child. That's how she invented language. Today, Lucy shakes her head and asks: "How did you let yourself be dragged down like that?".

Ekchart Schmidt examines the machinery behind the dream factory; the Hollywood myth is unmasked. How does the studio industry work? What role does marketing and the hype surrounding the stars play?

In conurbations where hundreds of thousands live alongside one another, in the era of a highly technological society, in which communication has never played such a significant role, man has become lonely. Disappointed by his fellow human beings, he turns to animals. Dogs and other domestic animals serve him as companions, life partners, cuddly objects and bedfellows.

Sistine Chapel is an audio-visual collage of new footage and samples from Paik’s past videos, which featured many of his friends, collaborators, and public figures. It was Paik’s own way of summarizing his artistic career with video. The film installation consists of fast-paced and overlapping images that completely cover the gallery walls and ceiling—one of the most under-appreciated parts of architecture, according to Paik. With its electronic visuals and booming audio, interspersed with periods of silence, the immersive installation stands in stark contrast to the experience of its namesake.

Short documentary vignettes and interviews revolving around cinephile life in Paris.

Various Hollywood people talk about love.

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.

A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.

A group of pilgrims lie down on the thin ice of the lake Svetloyar and begin to look for the city of Kitesh. According to the legend, God saved the city from the Mongolian prince Batyi's soldiers by letting it sink to the bottom of the lake. If you listen carefully you can hear the bells of the Kitesh cathedral toll deep down.

Filmmaker Sibylle Schoenemann, imprisoned by the GDR in 1984, was released to the FRG after having West Germany literally buy her freedom. In 1990 she went back and questioned those responsible.

Summer 1994, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two civil wars in only three years has torn the city apart and destroyed it. The town is split into a Croatian majority in the west and a Muslim majority locked in the east. An invisible wall divides the two areas. The EU appoints German social democrat Hans Koschnick as municipal administrator of the town in the hope of rekindling a sense of community there.

Based on years of research into the mass rapes committed by the Red Army at the end of the Second World War. In the first part of the documentary Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, after 46 years of silence they talk for the first time publicly about their violent experiences that have left such a mark.

Not a documentary in the strictest sense of the word. Rather, it is a journey through the world of the artist Jonas Mekas - one of the exponents of independent U.S. movies; founder and director of the New York Anthology Film Archive.

Using one of the Lumière Brothers' first films of workers leaving the Factory as his starting point, Farocki provides an insight to changes in industrial production, workers' strikes and motion pictures-- via images of workers leaving factories throughout the years.

102 Years in the Heart of Europe: A Portrait of Ernst Jünger (Swedish: 102 år i hjärtat av Europa) is a Swedish documentary film from 1998 directed by Jesper Wachtmeister. It consists of an interview by the journalist Björn Cederberg with the German writer, philosopher and war veteran Ernst Jünger (1895-1998). Jünger talks about his life, his authorship, his interests and ideas. The actor Mikael Persbrandt reads passages from some of Jünger's works, such as Storm of Steel, The Worker, On the Marble Cliffs and The Glass Bees.

Some concerts are important simply as occasions: The “Joint Concert Tel Aviv” was a celebration of reconciliation, a performance shared by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra that would have been inconceivable a few years earlier. Zubin Mehta takes a massive band consisting of both orchestras through performances of Ben Haim’s fascinating “Psalm”, Ravel’s “La Valse” and Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony”.

Most drugs exert their effects by changing the balance between excitatory and inhibitory signals at certain synapses. This is shown specifically using the examples of amphetamine, cocaine, LSD and heroin, while alcohol and sleeping pills serve as examples of a different mechanism of action.

The whole world in one film: Robert, a young Dane, is shanghaied in Marseille, and via Acapulco he is abducted into the South Pacific. There he kills his father and seduces his mother. Then he explores the changing world. The end finds him in a Polynesian village, where the chief bestows him with a girl of his age-class. A novel of adventure, a novel of love, also an oratory of some sort.

Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.

A curator and a visitor walk through an imaginary museum of recent German history. The focal plane follows the scenario of a tour in that the (subjective) camera simulates a stroll through a museum: in an open field, however.

An insight into life in the small Russian town of Borovichi.

In the early 80's die sozialistische kleiderordnung ( The Socialist Dress Code) in East Berlin is attacked. By black and colourful punks. Youth clubs, restaurants and cafes are closed for the punks. Where to go? Their homes are raided by the police.

In the summer of 1996, Farocki filmed application training courses in which one learns how to apply for a job. School drop-outs, university graduates, people who have been re-trained, the long-term unemployed, recovered drug addicts, and mid-level managers - all of them are supposed to learn how to market and sell themselves, a skill to which the term "self management" is applied.

Love, it is said, always ends fatally - either for love or for the lovers. In his highly acclaimed portrait film, Georg Stefan Troller meets people who have murdered for love - or what they thought was love. Those who strangled their partners in their sleep, attacked them with a knife or shot them, are stunned by their own actions in retrospect. It now seems incomprehensible to them that a brief moment, a moment of being out of their depth, was enough to throw them off course once and for all. With a detective's instinct, Troller delves into the perpetrators' innermost secrets. A movie about the mental abysses that gape in all of us and the longing for love that remains - for life.

A documentary about Germany's last emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The history of the GDR Super-8 scene—an underground art movement that produced films outside official channels in the 1980s—produced by Cornelia Klauss, herself a Super-8 artist. The Stasi (secret police) monitored this rebellious scene closely. Female artists Ramona Köppel-Welsch, Cornelia Schleime and Christine Schlegel, among others, talk about their art and films, their experiences as artists in the GDR, and how their work changed after the Wall came down.

The Entlebuch is a rural pre-alpine area of Central Switzerland, known for its backwardness and isolation. This film deals with the contemporary life of the inhabitants of the region, between tradition and modernity. The protagonists' accounts of their own lives show the wide range of attitudes and offer insight into the valley's regional identity.