Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

1927-09-23 | de

Berlin under Construction

Documentary short about the rebuilding of Berlin in 1946 from a Soviet perspective, showcasing the social changes that have taken place since the fall of Hitler and of Jews working side-by-side with non-Jewish counterparts.

1946-12-01 | de

White Man with Black Bread

Christof Wackernagel, best known in Germany as an actor and former member of the Red Army Faction ("RAF") lives in Mali. In his compelling portrait, Jonas Grosch shows a man who simply cannot stand still if he senses injustice. The courage to stand up for one’s beliefs coupled with vanity? However one chooses to look at it, it is easy to imagine what made him connect with the "RAF". With his irrepressible will for freedom, Christof Wackernagel gets entangled in the horrors of day-to-day life in Africa.

2007-01-13 | de

The Right Stuff

At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.

1983-10-20 | en

Hitlers Traum von Micky Maus - Zeichentrick unterm Hakenkreuz

The order comes in the summer of 1941 from propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels himself: The best animators are summoned to Berlin. Their task: Producing feature-length cartoons in ‘Disney-Quality’ with the newly founded ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH’. To get trained, the Disney movie “Snow White” is re-traced frame by frame. After the final victory, one new feature-length production of quality shall be released every year from 1947 onwards. – that is the plan. Only in 1943, the first production is completed: “Armer Hansi” a 17-minute-long colour movie, realized with the effortful Multiplane-technology. The second film by the ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm’ is only completed in 1946 – by DEFA. In the territories occupied by Germany, cartoons are produced as well, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes propagandistic ones. With excerpts from animated movies, life-action film documents, and witness reports by contemporaries, this documentary draws a picture of the cartoon production in the third Reich.

1999-01-01 | de

Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

2008-02-28 | de

Charlie Wilson's War

A Texas congressman sets a series of events in motion when he conspires with a CIA operative to aid Afghan mujahideen rebels fighting the Soviets.

2007-12-19 | en

Charlie Grant's War

A Canadian artist turned diamond merchant in Vienna, Austria risks his life to smuggle Jews out of the Third Reich.

1985-01-27 | en

3 1/2 Hours

August 13, 1961: The passengers on the interzonal train from Munich to East Berlin learn 3½ hours before crossing the border that the Wall is being built in Berlin. They have 3½ hours to make a life-changing decision: to get off the train or keep going.

2021-07-02 | de

Ein Tag in Berlin

1965-01-01 | de

Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We?

With the Doomsday Clock the closest it's ever been to midnight, Jane Corbin investigates the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe. She visits Los Alamos, home to the United States’ nuclear weapons development facility and the historic home of Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project. In Scotland, she reveals the strategy behind Britain’s nuclear deterrent, and speaks to campaigners in Suffolk fighting against US weapons they fear will be based on UK soil. Jane also discovers how many of the global agreements and safeguards that have constrained the spread of nuclear weapons since the 1970s are breaking down. This is a story told by the scientists, investigators and diplomats who set the clock and have fought to ensure that the ultimate deterrent has not been used in over 70 years.

2024-01-18 | en

Charlotte

The true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. When anti-Semitic policies inspire violent mobs, she escapes to the safety of the South of France. There she begins to paint again, and finds new love. But her work is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals an even darker secret. Believing that only an extraordinary act will save her, she embarks on the monumental adventure of painting her life story.

2022-04-22 | fr

Mission to Mir

This film shows how far we have come since the cold-war days of the 50s and 60s. Back then the Russians were our "enemies". And to them the Americans were their "enemies" who couldn't be trusted. Somewhere in all this a young girl in Oklahoma named Shannon set her sights on becoming one of those space explorers, even though she was told "girls can't do that." But she did.

1997-10-17 | en

Der grosse Kanton

Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?

2013-05-16 | de

Grand Illusion

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

1937-06-04 | fr

Night and Fog

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

1959-04-27 | fr

The Spies Among Us

Thirty years after the Cold War ends, a former political prisoner of the East German secret police searches for the truth after learning his brother spied on him for the regime, and discovers the lasting effects of living in a surveillance state.

2025-03-08 | en

Spirit of the Games

Documentary examines the history and evolution of the Olympic Games, taking a close look at the Olympic charter, oath and ideals. Also featured are rare home movies and interviews with Olympic athletes and the oldest known color footage of the Olympic Games from Berlin in 1936.

1996-05-01 | en

The Tin Drum

In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.

1979-05-02 | de

Effi Briest

When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small, isolated Baltic town and a house that she fears is haunted. Starved for companionship, Effi begins a friendship with Major Crampas, a charismatic womanizer.

1974-06-20 | de