So This Is Christmas

Illuminating the challenges often unseen beyond the toys, trees and tinsel, people in a small Irish village reflect on their difficult relationships with Christmas. "So This Is Christmas" is a heartwarming and charming portrait from award-winning director Ken Wardrop, which perfectly exemplies his innate ability to tell the stories of ordinary people, depicting their thoughts, feelings and experiences in an empathetic way. Beautifully rendered in 35mm, the film is authentic and compassionate, and a valuable addition to the Irish documentary canon.

Merci Udo Jürgens

Providencia March of the Crabs

Simsalabim

Through four nights of musical magic at Ullevi, Gothenburg, Håkan Hellström cemented himself as one of Sweden's greats last year. Edited together, this is a concert film of epic proportions and a musical euphoria.

The Threepenny Opera

The Threepenny Opera proclaims itself "an opera for beggars," and it was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of two young German artists, composer Kurt Weill and poet-playwright Bert Brecht. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny's source, The Beggar's Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel's operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue following the overture, a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, "Mack the Knife." The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria's coronation. In this production, Weill champion HK Gruber led the Ensemble Modern in a performance of Weill's complete original score, the first time it had been heard in Germany in many years. This production was broadcast on German television (3sat).

Udo Jürgens Forever

Aus dem Takt

Carl. Der Live Musikfilm

Urvertrauen - das Band zwischen Mensch und Hund

K.I.Z. - Splash! 17 Live

The K.I.Z concert at Splash! 2014.

The Listener

Ottobiography

Bojan, beyond the smile

Bojan Krkic has had success in the palm of his hand, but the difficulties encountered by a precocious and sensitive talent like him have marked his career since he made his debut with FC Barcelona at the age of 16. Bojan is a clear example of the pressure to which young talents in sport are subjected.

The Modrý Case

Bohumil Modrý, the best hockey goalie in the world, who significantly contributed to the first international successes of Czechoslovak hockey after World War II. In 1948, he was offered a job in the NHL, but his stellar sports career and happy family life were destroyed by a trumped-up political trial in 1950. He died prematurely in 1963 at the age of 46 from the effects of imprisonment and radiation.

The Son

“The True Biography of Nikita Mikhalkov” is the story of one of the most famous Russian directors (and one of the most adored actors by the public), told unbiasedly - that is, not from the words of Mikhalkov himself.

Classics On A Summer's Evening

Classics on a Summer's Evening is an outdoor concert for an enormous audience which was staged in an architecturally striking public square in Dresden in July 1999. It features the most glamorous young husband and wife currently active on the international operatic scene, soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna. Along with these fine performances comes Giuseppe Sinopoli--before his untimely death at age 54--who was considered one of Europe's finest opera conductors, and, in the Dresden orchestra and chorus, performers who match his creative energy.

Echo

Ania and Bartek, two stuttering teenagers undergoing speech therapy, are learning to like themselves and stop being afraid.

Empty Hours

In a retirement home in a small village in the south of France, residents try to build a community. What ties can they still manage to forge in this anonymous environment often perceived as hostile?

In Heaven There Is No Beer

The story of the Los Angeles 'Kiss or Kill' music scene (2002-2007). Fed up with the wretched Sunset Strip pay-for-play policies, 'too cool for school' trendiness of the Silverlake scene and apathetic crowds, the bands that made up Kiss or Kill forged their own scene based on great music, cheap booze, low cover, and a mid-western sense of community and friendship. At it's peak, Kiss or Kill had more than 60 bands in its roster and over 1,000 local L.A. fans. But as Kiss or Kill grew and became more popular, it fell victim to the same 'venue-isms' of other L.A. clubs and eventually became the very thing it was fighting against.

Trinkhalle

Silvia and Birgit have never met, but they live similar lives: both work over 15 hours a day and give everything to their regular customers. For decades, they have been the proud owners of their own “Trinkhalle” in the deepest Ruhr area.