Discover Movies

A short animation film on Martin Luther and the origins of the Reformation, one told with wry humor and paper cut-outs.

In twelve short episodes, which are interwoven into the course of a day, the film depicts situations that arise from keeping and caring for two cats for a family with six children in a suburban home. In addition to aspects of animal care, the film also addresses social problems and conflicts that arise from dealing with the animals in this family.

This production of Giuseppi Verdi's opera based on Macbeth, the famed play by William Shakespeare, is a musical succès d'estime but falls short in the cinematic arena. Shirley Verrett stars as the murderous and ambitious Lady Macbeth, Leo Nucci co-stars as her similarly ambitious but slightly more scrupulous husband, who has the good grace to feel some horror at his deeds before he does them. The entire opera was filmed inside a Belgian castle, and some of the smaller parts are obviously lip-synched to pre-recorded music.

Journalist Marga is commissioned by her editor-in-chief to interview a rock singer, Anne, from Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. When Robert, an unpublished poet and Anne's ex-boyfriend, shows up, Marga becomes way more interested in her interview assignment. A love triangle comedy set in the bohemian East Berlin Prenzlauer Berg atmosphere combined with 1980s punk rock music à la Nina Hagen that comments on East German taboo topics, including environmental issues.

Jefferson City, Missouri: Joseph Randolph, a VIP in a fictional electronics company, has just gotten the sack. The company bigwigs insist it is simply because of downsizing, but Randolph is not buying it. Enraged, he gets a handgun and shoots five managers to death. Then he turns himself in and is eventually put in a psychiatric hospital by the police. His family suffers a series of tragedies that leave only his daughter to wonder about why her father was committed to an institution. She joins with a visiting reporter from Chicago and another interested man, and all three start digging deeper into the company's history.

Designed as an exciting hybrid between documentary and fiction, this film offers a special look at the nuclear resistance in Gorleben in the years 1981-1985 in Germany. A fictional acceptance researcher tries to mediate between the fronts of the anti-nuclear movement and the police. With his sociological lectures, the committed scientist often contrasts the political utopia of the opponents of nuclear power with the given political reality in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Exciting ironic-self-critical nuances in the documentary material, which shows the turbulent events in the Wendland in the 1980s.

14-year-old Benjamin Holberg has once again escaped from a reform school. But this time too he was found and sent to another home. The boys housed there immediately put pressure on “the new guy” and assign him tasks such as cleaning toilets and the like. They comply with her request by using physical violence against Ben. When Ben talks to another boy named Manfred and tells him that he wants to run away again, he says that he cannot escape the police in the long term because they would organize a real hunt for him. But that doesn't stop the two boys from trying to escape from the home again

The story of the good citizen and postworker Bernhardt Stachoviak, who ends up running amok. Others would say: Out of his immense hatred towards mankind. He would say: Against his own will.

The film’s title is taken from a song, used here as a leitmotif, written by Günter Jordan and the East German rock group Pankow. This sensitive report about rebellious teenagers in Berlin’s “wild East” was banned before its first screening.

A bear escapes from the circus and befriends a girl.

A writer persecuted in a totalitarian state talks to his executioner, and contrary to expectations, the conversation unfolds, and the executioner shares his experiences with him. Based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt's radio play.

Two dockers from Lübeck get lost in the jungle during their vacation in Thailand. They have to face unexepected challenges coming their way.

Documentary about the life of the indigenous people in the Andes and in the slums of Lima, and of their religiosity.

The film takes a look at a professional gambler, who very successfully specialized on the German version of the slot machine.

Documentary about two families who have a private nuclear bunker built and then test it.

19-year old Benjamin, called Ben, works as a cashier on the fairground und is impressing girls with his youthful self-confidence. After an argument with his uncle, who had caught the boy with a 16-year old girl, Ben leaves his familiar surroundings und ventures into the world beyond the fairground. At Berlin′s Ostbahnhof, he meets the much older cookmaid Hanna, who puts homeless Benjamin up in her flat. Ben finds work as a welder in a factory where he at first has to cope with the prejudice of his sceptical co-workers.

This film deals with the contrasts of the Wilhelminian era in Berlin: the splendor of the monarchy, the economic and intellectual vitality of the up-and-coming imperial capital on the one hand, and the misery of the proletarians in the tenements on the other. The documentary sets depressing images of the horrors at the front against the exhilaration of victory at the beginning of the First World War.

Eight-year-old Christian lives with his grandparents after the death of his mother. When his grandmother falls ill, grandfather Meschka wants to take the boy to live with his aunt at the Baltic Sea. But Christian is against it. On the trip, the two develop a new relationship that changes everything.

1982 German Super 8 short work

An initiative discusses a videotape in which a group of activists portrays themselves and their work against the "nuclear power mafia." After argumentatively and polemically confronting the economic and political power of the energy industry, the activists call for the shutdown of escalators to counteract people's electro-paralysis.

The film essentially uses the original text of the play. The weavers, who toil away at home, deliver their goods to the manufacturer Dreißiger and receive their meager wages. Led by the young weaver Bäcker and the former soldier Moritz Jäger, they form a resistance group and storm the manufacturer's villa, who barely manages to save himself and his family. As the revolt spreads, the king sends in the military to quell the uprising. The old weaver Hilse, who refuses to participate in the uprising for religious reasons, is hit by a stray bullet while sitting at his loom and dies.

The time is the French Revolution; the place is the village of Travers, ensconsed in neutral Switzerland. Prussian aesthete Herman Beyer is on the verge of divorcing wife Corinna Harfouch. Radical writer Uwe Kokisch, Corinna's lover, hopes to find a way of smoothing out animosities. What follows, however, is a nonstop drinking binge. The film subliminally addresses the then-prevalent issue of a divided Germany. Whether or not it succeeds is unimportant; Treffen in Travers (Reunion in Travers) has proven to be a crowd pleaser wherever it has been shown.

In northeastern Brazil, day laborers and peasants flee from the arbitrariness of the big landowners to the big cities. The film team accompanies them on this journey full of misery and hopelessness.

Two shady businessmen set out to shake up the West Berlin funeral industry - with unconventional ideas and questionable methods. To this end, they take over the business of a long-established mortician who wants to retire. One of them also hooks up with the colorless daughter of the chairman of the local mortician's association in order to get money and his father's customer list from her. Meanwhile, his partner has to deal with his wife and their equally nagging children. And then the establishment strikes back. At the same time, the unmarried newcomer to the industry discovers that he does have real feelings for the association chairman's daughter.

Because she believes she is standing in the way of her parents' happiness, seven-year-old Sarah runs away from home. But the world is too big for the little girl and treacherous and insidious dangers are lurking everywhere. But luckily Sarah has her snow globe, a gift from her father, and his promise that whenever the moon rises in the sky, round and yellow and fat as a grapefruit, something quite wonderful will happen. Because inside the snow globe live two fairy tale characters.

A group of aging friends, foes, and former colleagues gather to celebrate and deride the life of 80-year-old actress Francesca on her birthday.

A little fire breaks out in a man’s apartment. He panically tries to call the other inhabitants in the house for help, but nobody lets him speak. Instead he is being happily pulled from one apartment into the next one, making him more and more nervous. Eventually, he runs into the streets and gets into a big group of heady-with-victory football fans.

Made during the last months of actor Kurt Raab, who died of AIDS in 1988. Raab, who had worked in both theatre and film, most notably with Fassbinder, was in the process of making a series of video sketches for a new production when he learned that he had AIDS. Despite his deteriorating health, and with the caring support of his friend Hans Hirshmuller, he carried on working. This tape is his last testimony.

Fred is a journalist who investigates the death of a man in room 36. He interviews the man's widow and her deranged mother for clues as to how the man died in a hotel room that is rented by the hour. Also under suspicion is a stranger named Becker who lives next to the room where the killing took place.

The film is the first part of a three-part series on cycling education. In the form of a feature story from science fiction, this episode presents the equipment of the roadworthy bicycle, its use in the traffic area and the physical-technical conditions of cycling.

A contemplation on night travelling in various weather conditions through seemingly endless landscapes in Europe, only briefly disrupted by shreds of conversation in a foreign language.

In three episodes about six people, the film takes on the topics of relationships, difficult social engagements , and love in the German Democratic Republic.

The film provides a reportage-like insight into the country of Libya and its social development. The focus is particularly on the "Green Revolution", i.e. the fight for water for a large-scale national agricultural program. This has led to the settlement of new settlers in the coastal strip between Benghazi and Dorna, whose lives are also reported on.

Kain, a young rock musician, is on his way from an "insider tip" to an acknowledged newcomer. Even though he often has to work at night, he leads a more or less settled life until he meets Nina. Nina, who is blind from birth, works as a switchboard operator at the post office. Her life as well is settled, and more so than for Kain the order in her life is a system of security for her. They fall in love and as time passes Nina gets much more involved in Kain's life as a musician than she wanted to.

In 1937, on behalf of Hitler, a competition was announced among the most important architects in Germany. The task was the redesign of the Hamburg Elbe bank. The face of the city was to be moved from the Alster to the Elbe. In addition to Berlin, Linz, Nuremberg and Munich, the Hanseatic city was thus declared a "Führerstadt". Representation and administrative buildings for the party and the private economy were to be created. The architects involved in the project are interviewed. They reflect their activity and function at that time.

Every day is a Black Friday for the man, everything goes wrong. No wonder that even the heroic decision to end his life fails.

The folk song "Between mountain and deep, deep valley..." is illustrated. Two hares think the hunter has shot them dead. When they realize that this is not the case, they happily hop away.

A GDR documentary from 1987 that shows the lives of commuters from the districts of Marzahn, Hohenschönhausen and Hellersdorf. Historically, it also goes back even further to the beginnings of Berlin's light rail system.