Berliner Tagebuch

‘Where I am, I don’t want to stay. I want to stay where I’ve never been.’ Filmmaker Rosemarie Blank was born in Berlin, but has lived in various other places in the world. After returning to her native city, she wondered what it’s like for other people to live outside their motherland. In this diary, she interviews people whom she literally met in the street: her Kurdish newsvendor, who apart from his busy trade has a second job with the German railways, a Lebanese hairdresser, a Turkish furniture seller. They talk about melancholy, longing, the struggle for existence and against discrimination and they show how they lead their daily life. The encounters are larded with observing shots of multicultural Berlin, particularly where diversity is most visible: the subway.

Rabbit à la Berlin

The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls. For 28 years Death Zone was their safest home. Full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were closed but happy. When their population grew up to thousands, guards started to remove them. But rabbits survived and stayed there. Unfortunately one day the wall fell down. Rabbits had to abandon comfortable system. They moved to West Berlin and have been living there in a few colonies since then. They are still learning how to live in the free world, same as we - the citizens of Eastern Europe.

Der Frühling erobert Berlin

Berlin - Hauptstadt der DDR I

"I'm walking through my city...", sings a cheerful pop singer. She fervently praises the new metropolis of East Berlin. As an emphatically lively, often anthemically condensed revue, the film tells of the "growth and development of our new capital". Accompanied by cheerful music, the camera indulges in high-altitude views, shows squares whose fountains, benches and green spaces are designed to make you forget that you are in a big city, as well as visitors from all over the world in top hotels. An emphatically cheerful, yet meaningful insight into the brave new GDR world.

Partisan

Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz 1992-2017. The end of the GDR gave rise to new artistic freedoms in reunited Berlin. Shortly after the fall of the Wall, rebel director Frank Castorf was appointed artistic director of the Volksbühne. His way of working altered the public’s perception of this theater. The chronological history of the Castorf era between 1992 and 2017 is told here in excerpts from the productions and in a series of conversations conducted on the long sofa in the theater's foyer.

Opa sein Berlin

Rare documentary footage from around 1900 depicts the mood of life in Berlin at the turn of the century.

Köy

KÖY (Turkish for village) is about the longing for home, for belonging and the freedom of the self. Three women from three generations are united by their Kurdish roots.

Iragan gunea Berlin

The film follows five people from different origins as they move anonymously around the streets of Berlin. Each of them with another life somewhere else, trying to ascertain where to go.

Schade, daß Beton nicht brennt

A documentary about the clashes between squatters and the police in Berlin in early 1981. Despite the absence of commentary, this is an openly partisan film that aims less for political analysis than for an up-close description of the situation and mood.

Berlin Ulysses

Successfully completed your studies - now what? Raffly already has a lucrative job offer from a large German company, but neither an apartment nor a work permit.

Der Sturz - Honeckers Ende

Erich Honecker ruled the GDR for 18 years. His fall in 1989 heralded the downfall of the state that had called itself "the better Germany" for 40 years. Nazi victim and autocrat, bourgeois and power-conscious: Honecker was an ideological hardliner who coordinated the construction of the Wall in 1961 and whose regime was known as an unjust state for Wall deaths, firing orders, the Stasi and forced adoptions. In the wake of the fall of communism, the former model socialist fell into homelessness and found himself on the run in his own country. Suffering from cancer, he managed to evade responsibility before a court by emigrating to Chile, where he died in 1994. This gripping documentary portrays the rise and fall of this contradictory German politician with an impressive array of top-class international and national contemporary witnesses. Erich Honecker would have been 100 years old on August 25, 2012.

Danton's Death

Steve, a 25-year-old Black man from the Paris suburbs, seeks to escape the violence of his immediate surroundings by training to become an actor at one of France’s most prestigious drama schools. But soon he discovers that the theater world is only interested in having him inhabit “Black” roles.

ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway

ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway is an American documentary film, directed by Dori Berinstein, a Broadway Producer, Writer and Filmmaker. Berinstein filmed each principal musical on Broadway for her project during the 2003-2004 season, for about 600 hours of initial film footage. She focused the film on four musicals, through the difficulties of pre-production, their openings, attendant publicity around the shows, and their reviews, through the 2004 Tony Award competition. The four musicals documented for the film were: Wicked, Taboo, Caroline or Change, Avenue Q.

Die Randgemeinschaft

Adolf Muschg – The Other

In his exploration of the cultural dynamic between East and West, Adolf Muschg, the most significant Swiss writer since Frisch and Dürrenmatt, searched for the other in himself in order to understand otherness.

Rent Boys

Documentary about the current hustler scene in Berlin. Based on interviews with former and active prostitutes, the realities of male prostitutes in Berlin are treated. The film is objective, and records the hustler scene as a social Submilieu, which is characterized by both tragic fates, as well as everyday things and routines. Not only the direct sale of sexual services is discussed, but also other aspects associated with male prostitution: poverty, drug addiction, AIDS, crime, migration, love and partnership.

The Sun Island

A documentary essay film about coincidences, shattered lives and posthumous fame. A found footage family film about love and passion, friendship and heartbreak in Berlin between the wars. But ​a film ​also about self-sufficiency and recycling​, about the green movement and the environment​ – before these ​notion​s had yet been properly invented. And it ​touches​ the utopian potential of ideas that have lain buried in the ground of an island for the past 70 years. The film’s protagonist, Martin Elsaesser, was one of the most prominent modernist architects of Weimar Germany.

Jesse Owens et Luz Long : le temps d'une étreinte

Dragan Wende - West Berlin

Dragan Wende has lived in Berlin since the '70s and has seen the city change through the years. His nephew comes to live with him as Dragan remembers the better days he lived as a Yugoslavian immigrant in a divided city.

The Cut of It

The Cut of It is a unique exploration of the decisions real women made when they were diagnosed with cancer.

Heart of a Dog

Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.

Tricked: The Documentary

This character-driven film considers the evolving sex trafficking landscape as seen by the main players: the exploited, the pimps, the johns that fuel the business, and the cops who fight to stop it.

Anna Nicole Smith: You Don't Know Me

From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.

Killing for Love

Derek and Nancy Haysom were brutally murdered in their house in Lynchburg, Virginia, on March 30, 1985. Suspicion fell on their daughter Elizabeth and her boyfriend Jens Söring. They flee to Europe, but are caught and extradited to the U.S. Elizabeth is sentenced to 90 years in jail for incitement to murder, Jens Söring to two life sentences. Karin Steinberger, Marcus Vetter and their team spent over three years researching this case, which achieved world-wide notoriety. They uncovered new evidence, including the fact none of the blood samples found at the scene of the crime belonged to Jens Söring.

Love, Gilda

Diaries, audiotapes, videotapes and testimonials from friends and colleagues offer insight into the life and career of Gilda Radner -- the beloved comic and actress who became an icon on Saturday Night Live.

A Plastic Ocean

A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.

Triumph of the Will

A showcase of German chancellor and Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

An intimate portrait of Hollywood royalty featuring Debbie Reynolds, Todd Fisher, and Carrie Fisher.

Fuck

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

Seduced and Abandoned

SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.

Being James Bond

Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Harmontown

A comedic, brutally honest documentary following self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon as he takes his live podcast on a national tour.

Frida

An intimately raw and magical journey through the life, mind, and heart of iconic artist Frida Kahlo. Told through her own words for the very first time — drawn from her diary, revealing letters, essays, and print interviews — and brought vividly to life by lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork.

Night Will Fall

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Love, Marilyn

Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.

Looking for Richard

Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."

Cameraperson

As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

I Am Ali

Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali's personal archive of "audio journals" as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend's life story.

Girl Model

A documentary on the modeling industry's 'supply chain' between Siberia, Japan, and the U.S., told through the experiences of the scouts, agencies, and a 13-year-old model.