Berlin at the end of the 19th Century. Alexander Hoffmann is an ambitious PhD student of Ethnology. When a delegation of the Herero and Nama tribes travels to Berlin during a ‘Colonial Exhibition’, he takes a special interest in their young female translator Kezia Kambazembi as subject for his studies.
It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.
Stalinstadt, East Germany, 1956. While the Hungarian uprising against Soviets is taking place, teenage members of a classroom of the local school perform a seemingly harmless act that causes unexpected consequences.
Astrid is a comedian who makes people laugh for a living; her husband Markus is her manager and the two of them work well together. They have a nine-year-old daughter and are expecting their second child. When they learn that their child will not be born healthy, they are at first optimistic that they will be able to meet this challenge – although they have no idea what awaits them. But the closer it gets to the due date, the more Astrid begins to worry about the future of her unborn child as well as that of her family and her career. After many discussions and arguments Astrid realises that the decision that will affect all their lives must be made by her alone. What complicates matters further is the fact that, as a successful entertainer, she is in the eye of the public and the media.
Master filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) transforms a portrait of the world-renowned museum into a magisterial, centuries-spanning reflection on the relation between art, culture and power.
With dazzling nature photography, Academy Award®–nominated director Markus Imhoof (The Boat Is Full) takes a global examination of endangered honeybees — spanning California, Switzerland, China and Australia — more ambitious than any previous work on the topic.
Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.
Asli and Saeed fall in love in the mid-1990s. Although Asli’s mother is against their relationship, they secretly get married. Then he disappears. A sensitive love story that recounts how Saeed changes Asli’s life – before the entire world is shaken.
A year that changed a city - and the world - forever. Hitler's rise to power, told through the letters and diaries of those who lived through a fateful turning point in history.
In the early 60s, Bernward Vesper and fellow university student Gudrun Ensslin begin a passionate love in the stifling atmosphere of provincial West Germany. Dedicated to the power of the written word, Bernward and Gudrun found a publishing house whose first publication is, paradoxically to many, a controversial past work of Bernward's ostracized father, an infamous Nazi author. Bernward defends his father's writing ability, even if he is haunted by his father's suspicious past.
East Germany. Summer, late 70's. Three years after her boyfriend Wassilij's apparent death, Nelly Senff decides to escape from behind the Berlin wall with her son Alexej, leaving her traumatic memories and past behind. Pretending to marry a West German, she crosses the border to start a new life in the West. But soon her past starts to haunt her as the Allied Secret Service begin to question Wassilij's mysterious disappearance. Is he still alive? Was he a spy? Plagued by her past and fraught with paranoia, Nelly is forced to choose between discovering the truth about her former lover and her hopes for a better tomorrow.
The consequences of the climate catastrophe are dramatic in 2034. Drought and floods destroy the livelihoods of millions of people. After the third storm tide in a row, the headquarters of the International Court of Justice in The Hague was evacuated. In a provisional interim building in Berlin, the climate catastrophe becomes the subject of legal proceedings. Two lawyers represent 31 countries of the global South, which are doomed to destruction without the support of the international community.
The flat on the third floor of a Bauhaus building in Tel Aviv was where my grandparents lived since they immigrated to Palestine in the 1930s. Were it not for the view from the windows, one might have thought that the flat was in Berlin. When my grandmother passed away at the age of 98 we were called to the flat to clear out what was left. Objects, pictures, letters and documents awaited us, revealing traces of a troubled and unknown past. The film begins with the emptying out of a flat and develops into a riveting adventure, involving unexpected national interests, a friendship that crosses enemy lines, and deeply repressed family emotions. And even reveals some secrets that should have probably remained untold...
There is nothing that keeps passionate social worker Wolski in Germany. On an uninhabited island in the Kingdom of Tonga he wants to give criminal teenagers a second chance. His first candidate is Marcel, 16, and no stranger to drugs, violence and crime. So a visit to the main island ends in disaster. Wolski only narrowly manages to keep the boy from being send to prison. The deal: From now on, Marcel is not allowed to leave the remote island at all.
Rafael - the minister of sports of an unrecognized country, and Natasha - a Russian opera singer, try living together in Abkhazia - a war-torn future-less country. Observing their difficult relations, we see life in a place marked by war and nationalism. The film portrays trapped people dreaming of peace, normality and happiness.
A documentary about the 20th century German sculptor and performance artist Joseph Beuys.
The story follows the trajectory of the Russian composer’s life and career, beginning in 1936 when Shostakovich, aged 30, faces Stalin’s wrath after his opera is condemned. A stroke of luck prevents him from becoming a casualty of the Great Terror, and for decades he has to weigh appeasing those in power in Soviet Russia against the integrity of his music.
The border between Brazil and Paraguay: living on opposite sides of a big river, Brazilian boy Joca falls in love with indigenous-Paraguayan girl Basano. A magical tale of impossible love and adventure in this land full of memories of colonial wars and indigenous genocide.
As the Internet finally arrives in tiny Bhutan, documentarian Thomas Balmès is there to witness its transformative impact on a young Buddhist monk whose initial trepidation gives way to profound engagement with the technology.
