Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)
A blend of fact and fiction, based on the actual lives of the actors, the film depicts a troupe of actors and dancers struggling to practice their art in the burned-out shell of Cambodia's former national theater, the Preah Suramarit National Theater in Phnom Penh.
A documentary about making The Remains of the Day.
A young group of actors are preparing an updated version of Shakespeare's ROMEO & JULIET. Two boys perform the central roles - both of them struggling with their own questions of love alongside their roles on stage. And as rehearsals begin, reality soon starts to interfere with the play.
Famous Spanish film critic Alfonso Sánchez talks about his personal life, his work and Anouk Aimée. A sentimental tribute to one of the most relevant figures on the Spanish film scene.
In Baden-Baden, Nayo Titzin follows the producers of the opera Don Giovanni, created for the Innsbruck Festival of 2006. He is looking for a musical truth... What if Mozart's masterwork Don Giovanni had been interpreted in a wrong way for more than two centuries? Conductor René Jacobs, famous for his performance of Così fan tutte and laureate of a Grammy Award for his innovative recording of The Marriage of Figaro, comes back with new ideas on the comprehension of one of the greatest operas of all times. In this relevant documentary, Nayo Titzin clarifies and highlights all the brightness of those melodies and recitatives. Rewarded with many praises in the international press, this production shows the dramaturgical perfection of the "opera of the operas," the absolute of the genre, as Wagner once said. Once more, the Bulgarian director offers a fun and subtle report, and makes sure that everyone will understand this myth.
Eva Ebner is a Berliner who gives the appearance of being rather eccentric. She knows the film business inside out – regardless of whether she’s work- ing behind the camera as an assistant director or in front of it as an actor. Her name is closely associated with a series of now-legendary adaptations of Edgar Wallace’s crime novels which were made in Germany during the 1960s. Upcoming young directors from local film schools have also profited from Ms. Ebner’s unbroken enthusiasm and passion for film. However, this eighty-year-old has a more than broken relationship to the events of her childhood and youth in Gdansk – a time when her life was characterised by an anti-Semitic step-mother and the dangers posed by the Nazi regime. This film portrait does not eschew any of the long dark shadows of that era, nor does it sidestep any friction between portrayer and his subject. (Lothar Lambert)
A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.
Directed and edited by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian Kubrick, this film offers a look behind the scenes during the making of The Shining.
The adventurous life of Natacha Rambova (1897-1966), an American artist, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, who reincarnated herself countless times: false Russian dancer, silent film actress, scenographer and costume designer, writer, spiritist, Egyptologist, indefatigable traveler, mysterious and curious; an amazing 20th century woman who created the myth of Rudolph Valentino.
An exploration of the exotic locations of 'The World Is Not Enough'
An hour of deleted and alternative footage shot for the 1981 horror classic; The Evil Dead.
The son of acclaimed cinematographer Haskell Wexler confronts his complex father by turning the camera on him. What results is a portrait of a difficult genius and a son's path out of the shadow of a famous father.
Promotional documentary filmed at the London East End Docklands area and River Thames for the filming of the opening boat chase for The World Is Not Enough (1999).
Actor/director Sidney Poitier discusses his life and career. He tells of his upbringing in Jamaica; the difficulties he encountered in New York City at the start of his career; his involvement in the US civil-rights movement; and efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. Friends and acquaintances, as well as other performers, give their insights about what makes him so special.
Director Scheffer registered a performance of the Tea Opera by Chinese composer Tan Dun (who won an Oscar in 2001 with his score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Scheffer interlaces the images with interviews with Dun, stage director Pierre Audi and librettist Xu Ying, about the opera and the role tea and oriental philosophy play in this work. Using monochrome, sometimes abstract images (in yellow, blue, red and green), close-ups of plants and flowers and images of the Chinese nature and people (sometimes accelerated or decelerated, sometimes in black-and-white), he mirrors the stylised opera performance and Dun's reflective music.
Arabella, Op. 79, is a lyric comedy or opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration.
Documentary about the making of the film Salò by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Documentary about the making of Alfred Hitchcock's 'Frenzy'.
The city of Madrid as it appears in the Spanish films of the 1950s. A small tribute to all those who filmed and portrayed Madrid despite the dictatorship, censorship and the critical situation of industry and society.