Status and Terrain

KinderblocK - L’ultimo inganno

Dark green, impenetrable forests cover a landscape with secluded valleys and rugged mountain ridges. 2.000 rivers and streams dig deep into the underground and transport their water into reservoirs or "Germany's Wild Amazon", the Wupper. These forests and rivers, together with heath-lands and moors, are home to a diverse fauna. Martens, badgers, wild boars, hares, roe deer, red deer and wild boars, even black grouse and hazel deer find shelter in these parts. Wolves have also have a dominant presence, not to mention those who live underground, such as lizards, bats, and snakes. Accompany us on a journey where we explore every corner of this rugged land. Climb underground into the Bergisches Land, through the vast hidden cave systems that sprawl far beneath the forests. There is also much to be discovered in the water, dive with us in crystal clear streams and rivers with their diverse flora and fauna.

Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.

Caroline Sturdy Colls, a world leader in the forensic investigation of Nazi crime scenes, is chasing clues to an unsolved case: a concentration camp that existed on the British island of Alderney. Witnesses and survivors claimed that thousands died there, but only 389 bodies have ever been found. Under heavy restrictions imposed by the local government, which may not want its buried secrets revealed, Colls must uncover the truth using revolutionary techniques and technologies.

By means of objects, photos, tapes and films, director Angelika Levi, half-German, half-Jewish, examines the story of her family. The film deals with trauma and the way history is produced, filed away, turned into discourse and ordered on macro and micro levels.

Nazi propaganda film about the Condor Legion, a unit of German "volunteers" who fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of eventual dictator Francisco Franco against the elected government of Spain.

This chilling, vitally important documentary was produced to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The film contains unedited, previously unavailable film footage of Auschwitz shot by the Soviet military forces between January 27 and February 28, 1945 and includes an interview with Alexander Voronsov, the cameraman who shot the footage. The horrifying images include: survivors; camp visit by Soviet investigation commission; criminal experiments; forced laborers; evacuation of ill and weak prisoners with the aid of Russian and Polish volunteers; aerial photos of the IG Farben Works in Monowitz; and pictures of local people cleaning up the camp under Soviet supervision. - Written by National Center for Jewish Film

In World War II. African-American GIs liberate Germany from Nazi rule while racism prevailed in their own army and home country. Returning home they continue fighting for their own rights in the civil rights movement.

The Bavarian district town of Dachau gained worldwide fame as the first Nazi concentration camp and has long since become a tourist attraction. In his directorial debut, cameraman Bernd Fischer, who was born and grew up in Dachau, documents the not-so-ordinary everyday life in his home town, life with the burden of the past and the various mechanisms of repression used by the locals. The result is a documentary tragicomedy about a place and a subject that none of those affected can escape.

On the 29th September 1945, the incomplete rough cut of a brilliant documentary about concentration camps was viewed at the MOI in London. For five months, Sidney Bernstein had led a small team – which included Stewart McAllister, Richard Crossman and Alfred Hitchcock – to complete the film from hours of shocking footage. Unfortunately, this ambitious Allied project to create a feature-length visual report that would damn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of Allied occupation had missed its moment. Even in its incomplete form (available since 1984) the film was immensely powerful, generating an awed hush among audiences. But now, complete to six reels, this faithfully restored and definitive version produced by IWM, is being compared with Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog (1955).

From the inner workings of the RAF. Former RAF-member Peter-Jürgen Boock reveal the many secrets and myths about the Baader-Meinhof gang a.k.a. RAF - Rote Armee Fraktion.

Auschwitz, la machine de mort nazie

Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.

In today's climate debate, there is only one factor that cannot be calculated in climate models - humans. How can we nevertheless understand our role in the climate system and manage the crisis? Climate change is a complex global problem. Increasingly extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and more difficult living conditions - including for us humans - are already the order of the day. Global society has never faced such a complex challenge. For young people in particular, the frightening climate scenarios will be a reality in the future. For the global south, it is already today. To overcome this crisis, different perspectives are needed. "THE UNPREDICTABLE FACTOR" goes back to the origins of the German environmental movement, accompanies today's activists in the Rhineland in their fight against the coal industry and gives a voice to scientists from climate research, ethnology and psychology.

Former classmates at a school in the Southern Germany city of Ulm, Jewish and non-Jewish, recall their childhood in Nazi Germany.

The secret Nazi death camp at Sobibor was created solely for the mass extermination of Jews. But on the 14th October 1943, in one of the biggest and most successful prison revolts of WWII, the inmates fought back.

Comprised of video shot during the Nazi regime, including propaganda, newsreels, broadcasts and even some of Eva Braun's colorized personal home movies, we explore the way in which the Third Reich infiltrated the lives of the German population, from 1933 to 1945.

Stunden der Entscheidung: Angela Merkel und die Flüchtlinge

The youngest protagonist of the documentary is Wartburg, an automobile over 50 years of age. The car is still on the road, driven by Bogdan, a 70-year-old who is taking his mother to visit the German factory where she was forced to work during WWII. In this road movie which takes place between Majdanpek and Germany, the trip becomes a journey into the past, retracing memories from the war and revealing a unique relationship between an old son and his elderly mother.

The army of the GDR, called NVA had not survived the reunification of Germany, it was completely absorbed by the Bundeswehr and scrapped subsequently. But what apparently went on so smoothly as a peaceful unification of hostile brothers quietly left deep scars in the East German landscape.