The Age of Ballyhoo

Los 5 Faust de F. W. Murnau

Narrated by historian, critic and filmmaker Elvis Mitchell, this documentary reflects the development of the iconic filmmaker's signature style, through the making of one of his benchmark films, Blackmail. The documentary highlights the birth of the "Hitchcock Touch" at a period when talking pictures first emerged and explores his trademark themes, like such as murder, suspense and cool blondes. While focusing on Blackmail, the documentary reveals how this film also foreshadows the director's later masterpieces, from Psycho to North by Northwest and from The Birds to Frenzy.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

The fascinating story of the rise to power of dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) in Italy in 1922 and how fascism marked the fate of the entire world in the dark years to come.

Herbst 1929 - Schatten über Babylon

A film that evokes the period between the end of the First World War and the Great Depression of 1929. For some, it was the golden age of pleasure and the easy life, with memories of Charleston, short-haired tomboys, wild races in a Torpedo, and the dizzying banks of Deauville. For the rest of us, it was a time of illusions, when the carefree post-war era did little to conceal the profound upheavals that were shaking the world: the Soviet Revolution, the establishment of Fascism in Italy, German rearmament, a changing China, and finally the great economic depression of 1929, which took on the proportions of a global catastrophe.

A chronicle of alleged ghosts, haunted landmarks and the otherworldly doings of Tinseltown, including a cursed script and haunted homes of the stars. A range of celebrities and parapsychologists provide interviews related to the history of Hollywood hauntings and their own experiences hosted by William Shatner.

Congrès de Tours 1920: The Birth of the French Communist Party

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.

Finnish filmmaker and artist Sami van Ingen is a great-grandson of documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty, and seemingly the sole member of the family with a hands-on interest in continuing the directing legacy. Among the materials he found in the estate of Robert and Frances Flaherty’s daughter Monica were the film reels and video tapes detailing several years of work on realising her lifelong dream project: a sound version of her parents’ 1926 docu-fiction axiom, Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age.

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.)

Still today, people say that during the stormy night from March 31st to April 1st, 1922, the devil had come to Hinterkaifeck. On the farmstead near Schrobenhausen, all 6 inhabitants – 4 Adults and two children – are struck down bestially. The police did not manage to seek out the murderer(s). As the case is still unsolved as of today, the story still lives on in the minds of the people. Motion pictures, theatre plays, and the bestselling novel “Tannöd”, behind all of them stands Hinterkaifeck. Aspiring police investigators and a self-declared “Internet – special commission ‘Hinterkaifeck’” have now once again taken up the trail of the case. This exciting search for traces is followed by the film, and its findings are recreated in elaborate play scenes. Thereby, a picture of an era thought to be bygone and an idea of what really happened back then comes into existence. More precise than any fiction, the docudrama manages to get closer to the truth.

Hollywood stars, historical footage and stylized reenactments tell the story of costume designer Orry-Kelly, who ruled Tinseltown fashion for decades.

To discover the truth behind the mysterious objects her uncle brought back from the Far East during her childhood, filmmaker Francesca Lixi embarks on a journey to those places through archival footage.

Winston Churchill, one of the most revered men of the twentieth century. Adolf Hitler, one of the most hated leaders in contemporary history. Between 1940 and 1945, these two enormously contradictory personalities faced each other in both politics and war. A clash of giants whose story begins in the trenches of the World War I and ends with the debacle of the World War II.

Robert J. Flaherty's South Seas follow-up to Nanook of the North is a Gauguin idyll moved by "pride of beauty... pride of strength."

How can the masses be controlled? Apparently, the American publicist Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995), a pioneer in the field of propaganda and public relations, knew the answer to such a key question. The amazing story of the master of manipulation and the creation of the engineering of consent; a frightening true story about advertising, lies and charlatans.

The story of the legendary wits who lunched daily at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. The core of the so-called Round Table group included short story and poetry writer Dorothy Parker; comic actor and writer Robert Benchley; The New Yorker founder Harold Ross; columnist and social reformer Heywood Broun; critic Alexander Woollcott; and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Robert Sherwood.

A documentary film investigating the 1928 murder of a Pennsylvania farmer and the allegations of witchcraft that shocked the nation.