Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Effi Briest

When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small, isolated Baltic town and a house that she fears is haunted. Starved for companionship, Effi begins a friendship with Major Crampas, a charismatic womanizer.

The Good Shepherd

Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded OSS. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.

Hereje

The film chronicles the last 3 years of Akhenaten -called "the heretic pharaoh"- and his wife Queen Nefertiti, their mysterious and convulse reign in the context of the profound political and theological reform they promoted.

Spirit of the Games

Documentary examines the history and evolution of the Olympic Games, taking a close look at the Olympic charter, oath and ideals. Also featured are rare home movies and interviews with Olympic athletes and the oldest known color footage of the Olympic Games from Berlin in 1936.

Faces Places

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty

It is one of Egypt's enduring mysteries. What happened to Nefertiti and her husband, Akhenaten - the radical king, and likely father of King Tut? In a dark and mysterious tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, there is a small chamber with two mummies without sarcophagi or wrappings. At times, both have been identified as Queen Nefertiti by scholars, filmmakers and historians. But the evidence has been circumstantial at best.

The First Emperor of China

This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.

Helga Paris, Fotografin

A Woman in Berlin

A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.

Conspiracy

At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented.

Ancient Olympics: Let the Games Begin

Come back with us to Ancient Greece, 2,500 Years ago to the original Olympic Games. The ancient Games, like our modern Olympics, included champions and cheaters, glory and scandals, bitter rivalries and contests of strength, speed and savage combat. Set in 448 BC when the pounding of horse's hooves and the brutal hand-to-hand combat could be heard and seen by the crowds that filled the Olympic stadium. This one-hour special event follows the glory and corruption of the arc of a single, five-day Olympiad. The competitions include chariot racing, running, jumping, discus, javelin and two man-to-man combat finals-boxing and pankration, a form of extreme fighting in which death was not uncommon. With the help of sports historians and great athletes such as George Chuvalo and Olympic medallists Donovan Bailey and Angela Schneider, viewers travel back to a very different life-in a very different world.

Destruction of the Berlin Wall

Filmed in Berlin, July 1990. Images of workers taking down the wall and street peddlers selling pieces of it to make a living.

Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

Flooded Tombs of the Nile

Outside the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the remains of an ancient city stand in the desert. Are you ready to dive beneath the pyramids of Sudan's black pharaohs?

Queens Don’t Cry

Bosom buddies BeV StroganoV, Ovo Maltine, Ichgola Androgyn and Tima die Göttliche are four Berlin drag queens who met in the mid 1980s. These four queens became Germany’s most popular drag performers and have been busy fertilizing the German cultural scene. Besides being performers, they are also political activists – in AIDS awareness, anti-gay violence, the sex workers movement and the struggle against the extreme right and racism. The film tells their story.

The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism

Taking its lead from French artists like Renoir and Monet, the American impressionist movement followed its own path which over a forty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art as a creative power-house. It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France, this mesmerising film is a feast for the eyes. The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism features the sell-out exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920 that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Becoming Black

In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews with Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the astonishing strategies of denial her parents, striving for normality, developed following her birth. What sounds like fieldwork about social dislocation becomes an autobiographical essay film and a reflection on themes such as identity, social norms and family ties, viewed from a very personal perspective.

Symphonie einer Weltstadt

Documentary about the life in Berlin in 1941. The planned premier was stopped by the national party due to the damages and painful changes to the city that soon followed. It thus premiered in 1950.

Freitag, der 13.

24 hours at the Berlin traffic accident standby service. The frequency of accidents on the streets of the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) becomes apparent, including inappropriate and increased speed, pedestrian errors, failure to give way and driving under the influence of alcohol. Major Busse, the head of the Berlin Traffic Accident Investigation Unit, raises the question of whether the GDR has developed its own kind of driving. The camera provides interesting insights into the carelessness and aggressiveness of road users, which can lead to serious injuries and deaths