Discoveries from Germany World Cinema

Melting glaciers, gullied seas, the financial markets are about to collapse. Spectacular images of how growth continues to be blinding. Outside you can hardly see anything because of the smog and the smoke screen.

Two youth gangs of the low class generation in the '80s fight in a war. The "Sharks" and "Council" defend their territories with their lives. Violence, hatred and brutality are commonplace soundtracked by thrash metal music. As the conflict grows, it comes to the final battle: a man-versus-man duel for Richy, the leader of the "Sharks".

Stefanie Schröder is overjoyed when she can finally embrace her son Rainer again. The young man, who had converted to Islam at the time, had spent two years in an Islamic prison on suspicion of terrorism. But life in Germany is anything but easy for Rainer. The secret service won't let him out of their sight, he can't find a job and integration into society is difficult. Firmly convinced that Rainer has finally renounced the jihad, the holy war, Stefanie finally obtains the termination of Rainer's surveillance. But just as everything seems to be taking a turn for the better, Stefanie is cruelly forced to realize how wrong she has been about her son.

Photographer and journalist Verena has a well-paid job that she enjoys and a loving partner. When she meets the Arab Khalid, she falls in love with the charming man who fascinates her greatly. The two meet again in Dubai

Sensing their relationship is crumbling, Christian avoids celebrating Christmas with his girlfriend Julia and heads for Paris.

Schweinsteiger's glittering career, which peaked with lifting the World Cup in 2014.

When Isabelle loses her necklace while walking down the street, the attractive Jimi helps her to fish the pendant out of a gully. Jimi falls in love with Isabelle at first sight and wants something from her in return for his help. For four weeks, he doesn't want to leave the pretty daughter of Simeon Herzog's side. But Isabelle doesn't even think about it and simply leaves Jimi. Even the next day, Jimi cannot forget the fateful encounter and visits Isabelle at the castle hotel. Isabelle only gives in to Jimi's pleas at her father's insistence. Together they organize a fundraising gala and realize that they couldn't be more different.

Charlotte, in her early 70s, is not a woman to fool. With energy and assertiveness, she leads the family-owned company since the death of her husband. But lately, irritating incidents are piling up: Charlotte gets bumpy, forgets appointments and messes things up. Alone Katrin, the life partner of her son Markus, speaks out, what nobody wants to admit: Charlotte suffers from dementia. But even though she herself feels that something is wrong with her, the proud woman refuses any help. Until the situation threatens to escalate.

A muffin thief troubles Mr. Baker, so he seeks help from a sleek detective. They agree to catch the thief at night in the bakery in Baker Street.

The documentary is a portrait of of the oldest video library in the world and its owner, Eckhard "Ecki" Baum. Baum opened the "Video Film-Shop" in Kassel, Germany in the summer of 1975. It all began in the Wolfsanger district with the sale and exchange of Super 8 films, that soon led to a bigger shop and some daring methods.

A divorced father picks up his eight-year-old daughter Lea. It seems pretty much like every second weekend, but after a while Lea can't help feeling that something isn't right. So begins a fateful journey.

The dishes are smashed, the lampshade broken, the curtain torn down. The relationship between Marlene and her husband Paul seems to be over. In fact, the two have not gotten along so well for a long time - and out of sheer high spirits they have just made up for their bachelorette party. This is what Marlene is most surprised about, because her plan was actually quite different: the insurance broker wants to divorce her easy-going husband, who has been cheating on her constantly for the past 30 years of marriage.

GDR, August 1989: Hanna and Andreas became a target of the secret police and had to give up their plans for their future studies and desired professions. Instead, they face arbitrariness, mistrust and reprisals. Their only chance for a self-determined life lies in fleeing across the Baltic Sea. Fifty kilometres of water separate them from freedom - and only a thin connecting rope around their wrists saves them from absolute loneliness.

For Johannes and Lydia Klare, their faith in God comes first. Together they lead a small community in Stuttgart, successfully. People listen to them, they are becoming more and more close to them. There are even plans to make the donor-funded community much bigger by the generous contributions of Volker. First of all, the couple have quite different, more urgent points to take care of. When one day they watch the homeless street-boy Simon drifting back and forth in drug-related crises, they take him in for a short while. Together they want to help him again on the right path. But it is not just the drugs that are causing conflicts. Simon's homosexuality also presents the two with great challenge, since it is not so easy to unite with their faith.

For years, the immigration officer Dr. Ludwig Sarheimer and the chairman of the Turkish community Cengiz Demirkan in Cologne have been fighting a small war. While the one, as a hodja, upholds the traditions of his homeland and brings Anatolian brides to Germany for Turks who are willing to marry, the other wants to prevent exactly that. Cengiz's daughter Lale Demirkan is at the center of these ongoing disputes. At home, the young woman plays the well-behaved Turkish daughter, but as soon as the German studies student leaves the house, she takes off her headscarf and sense of tradition and has fully arrived in German life. In her free time, she practises martial arts fighting techniques. So far, she has successfully fended off potential grooms.

End of the WWII, concentration camp somewhere in Poland. Prisoners have heard that Germans have plans to kill them all, before the Allies come. One of the prisoners escapes, and tries to find the Allies. A manhunt begins.

In this three part documentary we look at all topics South Africa has to offer. THE BIG FIVE focuses on the kings of animals, lion, rhinoceros, elephant, leopard and the African buffalo. Armed with 3D cameras, we visited the Kings of the savannah and the jungle, where we sensed the fascination that emanates from the largest animals in the wild. In SAFARI we look behind the scenes of a park and found out what it means to pursue eco-tourism and just what the opportunities and the risks are. Finally, we discover the WEST CAPE region and its unique flora and fauna, swim with whales and sea lions, follow penguins and – as a highlight – we meet the white sharks. Join us on a spectacular 3D journey.

40-year Maria is living in a monotonous and deadlocked marriage with her husband. In addition, she has to take care of her ill despotic father. One day, she falls in love with her sensitive neighbour Dieter. But her attempt to leave her gloomy everyday life behind leads straight into tragedy.

Episodes about different stages of relationships: from flirtation to falling out of love.

Drama about the shipwreck of the frigate "Méduse" off the coast of Senegal. In France, the commander responsible, Chaumarey, is finally put on trial.

The relationship between the little half-orphan Florian and his father is very close. Nevertheless, Florian longs for a mother. He decides to help his father find a wife.

After Sam, a penniless Afro-German singer, discovers he's HIV positive, he gets utterly drunk, spends a few miserable days, but promptly falls (back) in love. Amidst a crumbling former East Berlin (its bulidings, cars, people & culture), Sam develops a "family" for the new millenium, for the new generation of post-drug cocktail AIDS victims. The fragile "family" he forms includes his on-again-off-again boyfriend Rainer, and his best friend Bastl with his latest fling, Mike. Like the old, schmaltzy East German songs which Sam is recording, the sweet innocence of the characters struggle to prevail, the misfortunes of the characters nothwithstanding.

A beautiful widow is determined to uncover the facts behind her husband's death.

The musician Peter Paul Müller (Dieter Borsche) lives for his job. So much so that he also forgets the circumstances of the Nazi dictatorship. In the years between 1930 and 1946 he was only allowed to perform in small clubs, but after he met the pretty singer Marion (Vera Molnar), the big breakthrough came. But with the many appearances, the relationship with his wife Annemie (Kristina Söderbaum) threatens to break up.

When the strong friendship between a precocious eleven year old girl and a middle-aged family man is attacked for being unhealthy and immoral, the two run away together, but their care-free days are numbered.

Two beautiful young women kill men in a villa in Tuscany: Maya and Cora have been friends since childhood. Maya has an alcoholic artist father who deserted the family, a mentally disturbed mother and a violent brother, Carlo. Cora is from a wealthy middle-class family. Cora helps Maya to poison Carlo's friend Detlef, who is threatening to blackmail her. They then kill Carlo when he tries to rape Cora. Cora's family takes Maya in, and a happy time begins for her, particularly when they spend the summer in Italy.

Marie Gruber fights tooth and claw to keep her café open. And yet she should be facing her "arch-enemy" with pure hostility. But she unwittingly falls in love with the real estate speculator who wants to take the café away from her. When the two confess their love for each other, the trouble really begins...

After years of hospitalization for alcoholism, a techno musician makes her son swear to never let her spend the rest of her life in an institution. When her doctors diagnose her with permanent brain damage, 20-year-old Adam, who is deaf and completely on his own, must decide whether to break his promise or help her die...

A film gala featuring a colorfully mixed program of musical numbers, along with the most popular artists of the GDR music, film and television scenes. The majority of the show is comprised of music performances, which are visually altered or transformed. Cabaret-style written contributions and one acts round out the program. Before each performance, the artists involved are seen in an everyday situation in their life.

The Berlin teacher Anna Wiegand takes over the management of the elementary school of a contemplative Black Forest village. But the attempt of the dedicated teacher to bring a fresh breeze into the well-worn school life, met with her stubborn colleagues in the province on little love. When Anna also approaches the local size, Count Alexander von Schönberg, whose daughter reveals a long covered reading weakness, she finally brings him up against her.

Rather coarse, pre-War comedy about a Markgraf -- Heinrich XXVI -- who bathes in the springs of the Ammendorf to strengthen his potency. The town and its springs are especially well known for the many couples with lots of children, who, for tax reasons, live there unmarried. The town smithy and bully provides his vitality to ensure the countess has an heir for the throne.

Peter and Nina, both around 40 and parents of two children, decide to part as harmoniously as possible. However, Peter only moves to the summerhouse. The firm decision of Peter and Nina: "We want to remain friends and continue to care for our children as well as possible." This is not just lip service but really the intention of both parents. After all, you're grown up. Already at the very beginning of her new life, however, it can be felt that Peter does not take this separation as seriously as Nina, who is clearly the driving force behind Peter's departure.

Thanks to the latest DNA technology, Bruno van Leeuwen finally has a proof in his hands, with which the rapist of the then nine-year-old Vicky can be convicted. Piet Martens, the neighbor of the girl's family, was the culprit. But despite the new evidence, he can not be brought to justice because the crime is now time barred. Martens leaves the police headquarters as a free man. Then Vicky falls on Martens and hits him with a bottle. The police separate the two and Martens' lawyer reports to Vicky about dangerous assault.

Marie is in her mid-thirties and has been with Sascha for a very long time, sometimes she does not even know for how long exactly. The next phase in their relationship is initiated as they only get naked on her fertile days. But does she really want it? The big picture? Or rather be wild and free? When the questions in her head get too loud, she hits the 'mute' button. Until she finds herself in a chalet in the mountains, with three others. Learning that no decisions are decisions. Running away is no option, so it gets straight down to the nitty-gritty.

Alexander Arkens lives a happy life as the tenant of the Immenhof. His twin daughters Billy and Bobby also feel good. Then Alexander receives the message that the owner of the farm wants to increase the rent. A little later, Dalli, the farm owner, visits the estate of her youth. There is a huge spark between her and Alexander.

On Christmas Eve, Francesca sets out for Rotterdam in order to find her little sister, who has run off with her musician boyfriend. On the way, she picks up Gerlinde, a heartbroken older woman at the end of her rope.

Max and Moritz are two young brothers living an adventurous life of petty crime in Hamburg, Germany. After the two boys steal a car and get into an accident, with the adolescent daughter of a Hamburg Senator sitting in the passenger seat, the two scoundrels are packed up and sent to a boot camp. This military-style camp is run by Axel and Henry, two former East German soldiers who still strongly believe in Communism but are secretly gay lovers. Max and Moritz steal another car...a red Ferrari owned by small-town pimp Murder-Hanne. The nationalistic sadist teaches the boys a painful lesson, but Max and Moritz wouldn’t be Max and Moritz if they let this weekend-fascist get them down... and when they acquire the key to their military school’s ordinance depot, things start to change.

Schoolboy Jerôme Höffner, a brilliant nerd, is despised and pestered by his 'cool' classmates, except assertive immigrant Said, who protects him. Foppish mother Debbie Höffner's cool latest lover Marco Schmitz teaches his 'stepson' to fight back against bullies, but breaking Jan's nose in self-defense, Jerôme is forced in therapy with a child psychologist, who finds him a genius and recommends a mensa boarding school, but he willfully scores average on tests, fearing Debbie can't cope alone, until her clumsy attempts to offer enrichment privately frustrate him enough to visit, with Said, Dr. Kleybold's IQ school, which proves most tempting.

Espionage thriller about a married couple caught in the middle of dueling spy organisations.

For Balduin, going out to beer parties with his fellow students and fighting out disputes at the tip of the sword have lost their charms. He wants to find love; but how would he, a penniless student, ever dare looking up to any woman worth of loving? Absorbed in his dreary thoughts and indifferent to the advances of Lyduschka, Balduin is unexpectedly offered a fortune by the mysterious money-lender Scapinelli - but on a strange condition...

One day, Carmen Müller realizes that her husband Werner has been unemployed for months and has accumulated debts of 80,000 DM in their bank account. She comes up with a plan to rob her bank. When the branch manager and neighbor Lothar Fuchs, whom Carmen has always envied for his beauty and wealth, recognizes her, she takes him hostage. In their hideout in the Allgäu, the banker falls in love with the housewife, just as Werner and Fuchs' mistress Gabriele grow closer. The quartet form an alliance and defraud the bank together. Having come into money so suddenly, the Müllers don't feel comfortable either and secretly distribute their fortune around the neighborhood.

Even a God-like gourmet instance can sometimes be wrong: out of the blue, Eifel landlady Toni gets a star for her cooking skills. There is in their "copper can" only a lunch table with bourgeois home cooking. Of course, it is a mistake of the renowned restaurant guide, the star chef Rufus expensive: without the prestigious star threatens his eponymous gourmet temple off! When his snobbish regulars turn to Toni's "copper can", the landlady gets cold feet: In contrast to her mother Heidi, she wants to eliminate the error as quickly as possible from the world.

17-year-old Petra travels to Munich. On her very first evening, the young woman gets to know the Schwabing nightlife: Manfred takes her to a party where the going gets hot.

A documentary covering the 1960 Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, California.

Pepe Nietnagel's father has a valuable stamp collection stolen in Amsterdam. Street musician Pit recovers it. To show his gratitude, Pit is invited to Baden Baden and enters the Mommsen Gymnasium. There, he joins Pepe in his pranks.

Based on H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time, this is the story of a professor who suffers a seizure which results in total amnesia. As he recuperates he is so different his family deserts him. He gathers knowledge of things outside his specialty for five years, then has another seizure. When he reawakens he is himself again, but now he has no memory of the five years between the attacks. He begins having bizarre dreams, and tries to find out what he was doing during the five years he can't remember. What he discovers, combined with the growing reality of his dreams, convinces him that something much darker than a mere personality shift was going on.

Bella is in a dilemma: She lives with her ex Martin and her new boyfriend Sebastian in a shared flat. Neither does she dare to pour Martin pure wine, nor to quit. Just when Bella has come to an end to the secrecy, a bad news arrives by phone: Two very good, mutual friends of Bella and Martin have been fatally injured. They leave Tom, a two-year-old boy. Bella does not hesitate: Martin and her will take care of the boy. But how should that work in the WG? And what about Bella's relationship with Sebastian?

This semi-fictional movie portrays the german soccer player Franz Beckenbauer. It shows the ups and downs of being a superstar.

As sole female Junta is the only one who can climb a dangerous mountain, villagers deem her as a witch.

Felix Klare and newcomer Mona Pirzad play the main roles in the comedy "Liebe auf Persisch": While the beautiful interpreter, with a weakness for Goethe and German rap, brings him closer to the culture of their country, the clumsy guest abroad comes to his father's secret, played by Günther Maria Halmer, on the trail. Director Florian Baxmeyer manages an entertaining romantic comedy without leaving out substantial culture clash topics. With this road movie in a breathtaking landscape, a German TV production was filmed for the first time on original locations in Iran.

Prosecutor Charlotte Reinke investigates in a sensitive case: The eight-year-old Laura accuses her father novel of sexual abuse. This indignantly rejects the suspicion. The child had made the accusation under the influence of the mother, who only wanted to take revenge for having left her for another. Does Roman say the truth? Rather accidentally, the prosecutor makes a decisive discovery.

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1919, when the Republic of Weimar is born, to 1933, when the Nazis come into power. (Followed by Hitler's Hollywood, 2017.)

One day the animals become too colorful: war is constantly going on among the people. When Alois, the lion, learns that the 365th Peace Conference has just failed, the animals decide that it is high time to intervene: they call their own "animal" peace conference. With much courage and even more imagination, they develop a plan so that Frides can finally prevail among the people of the world ...

In this biopic, Marlene Dietrich leaves Berlin for Hollywood, where she establishes herself as an international star through various film roles.

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.

TV-movie based on the trial of Memmingen gynecologist Dr. Horst Theissen, who was sentenced for illegal abortions.

A series of knife murders have an odd feature about them; the victims find that their luggage has been packed for them just before their deaths. Scotland Yard investigates, and discover that the murders are linked to an addictive drug called Mescadrine.