Germany, 1945. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he has stolen only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whoever he is.
Werner Schroeter directed this dark and surreal tale of a man determined to save a lost lover from a grim fate at the hands of a violent mob. The city of Santa Maria is falling into chaos as an armed military faction is poised to take power in a coup d'etat. Ossorio used to call Santa Maria home, and he has returned in its darkest hour to find the woman he loves, hoping to rescue her from the violence that is lurks around the corner. As Ossorio searches for his love, he meets Victoria in a shabby hotel, who in turn introduces him to her father Barcala, who for the right price is willing to take Ossorio and another passenger away on his boat. While Ossorio is willing to pay Barcala what he wants, can he find the mysterious woman before the ship sets sail?
Rome in 65 AD, Emperor Nero's tyrannical regime has reached its zenith, Nero's self-indulgence and excessiveness brings up the opposition against him, conspiracies threaten his power. By all means Nero tries to defend his despotic claim of sovereignty. The famous philosopher Seneca has been Nero's teacher, mentor and close advisor since childhood, he is significantly involved in his ascent. Nevertheless, Nero gets weary of Seneca and Nero uses a foiled attack on his life to falsely accuse Seneca of being an accomplice.
The gritty, kinetic, visionary cinema of Roland Klick is ripe for rediscovery. After shooting with international stars, such as Mario Adorf and Dennis Hopper, Klick celebrated international success and achieved cult status. Yet after making only six features, he disappeared from the scene in a rather mysterious way. The story of an uncompromising film maniac.
A Tunisian breakdancer falls in with fundamentalists with designs to turn the young man into a suicide bomber.
Werner Schroeter was one of the most significant proponents of New German Cinema. Schroeter was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. In her film, Elfi Mikesch, who photographed a number of Schroeter’s films and who collaborated closely with him to create his vision, provides us with an intimate insight into Schroeter’s artistic output during the remaining four years of his life.
In 1988 Cynthia Beatt and the young Tilda Swinton embarked on a filmic journey along the Berlin Wall into little-known territory. The film CYCLING THE FRAME is now an unusual document. 21 years later, in June 2009, Beatt & Swinton re-traced the line of the Wall that once isolated West Berlin. THE INVISIBLE FRAME depicts this poetic passage through varied landscapes, this time on both sides of the former Wall.
Everything That Rises Must Converge is a hybrid documentary/fiction film. It follows four real-life adult film performers as they start their day at home, get in their cars and drive to work in a nondescript residential house in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. In between documentary scenes, we also encounter several fictional characters whose stories revolve around the same residential house where the performers work. Shown as a grid of four simultaneous images, the film weaves scenes of everyday life with moments of beauty, as well as the strange and absurd moments of apparent convergence.
Ecology, equality, sustainability: Anita and Sarah pursue lofty political goals as they establish a new feminist party. By contrast, the men who are infected by a new type of virus tend to have less honorable intentions. The consequences: sexual obsession, molestation, and death. Urgent effort is put into developing a vaccine. But should the male sex be saved at all?
Amira, an aspiring young dancer, is cast out of her uncle's home in Tangiers when she refuses to either get married or become a housemaid. She finds refuge in the apartment of some girlfriends who earn their living as prostitutes. Pia and Tom, a young German couple, have come to Morocco seeking musical inspiration. When they meet her in a nightclub, Amira's sensual dancing inspires the thought of a potential love triangle that might help stimulate Pia's stagnant relationship with Tom. Amira, with ulterior motives, embraces the idea of an affair with Tom, hoping this might provide an opportunity to change her fate.
"What is to be done?" three women with artistic and creative professions in temporary living conditions are wondering. They are sharing a flat in an old building close to Berlin Central Station. The area is one of the city's last remaining gaps between buildings. They decide to end their flat share as soon as the first trenches will be dug. With mixed feelings they are heading towards the time when their spontaneous life comes to an end, which means they have to make one or more (life) decisions eventually. The current flat is a symbol for their own life scripts so far: unformed and all bets are off but it already starts to be uncomfortable. They spend the remaining days in their flat with friends, celebrations, discussions and the strong feeling for the dawning of a new era.
His buildings are garish, colorful and completely overloaded. Columns and glittering chandeliers everywhere, and way too much of everything. The Bolivian civil engineer and architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre (*1971) builds houses in El Alto for a nouveau riche upper class of the Aymara, the largest indigenous ethnic group in Bolivia.
Using unpublished and newly digitalised archive footage and film material, Bettina Böhler has brilliantly assembled this film about the life and work of the exceptional artist Christoph Schlingensief, who died in 2010.
Because the German state has failed, a large number of people are living in the forest, outside of society.
The third autobiography in the series deals with modern architecture. For the grand finale, he covers a broad historical spectrum: Parabeton tells of the great Roman concrete buildings from the start of the Common Era and compares them with Pier Luigi Nervi’s work, the Italian master of concrete construction. As concrete can be made into many different shapes, the buildings and the domes, slopes and spiral staircases they contain have an innovative, seminal quality. Those familiar with Emigholz's work will note that the skewed camera angles used in the past are replaced by straight-on views. Moreover, the ancient constructions seem more dynamic than those of the last century. Almost devoid of people, the images we know from his preceding films make the ruins from the 1930s to the 70s, the familiar cement constructions of daily life with their play of light and shadow or even the Pope’s Audience Hall appear more ghostly than the famous sights of the ancient world.
In the 21st part of his Photography and beyond series, Heinz Emigholz projects as usual a series of structures into our brains and from there on to the screen: Airports, motorways and bus stops; department stores, market halls and warehouses.
A taxi drives through the city of Berlin. Its driver is a punk, left and a well-known figure in the autonomous scene. The stations of his trip are the most important places of the autonomous scene: all in the struggle for survival. The last evictions have not yet been processed and the next ones are coming right up.
Using rich archive material, this documentary looks back at Christoph Schlingensief and his cross-border art project for the 1998 Bundestag elections.
Three actors - Lizzy, Marlon, and Ohboy - navigate city life between rehearsals, nightlife, and alienation. Marlon, new to town, struggles with his role and babysitting. Lizzy chases fame yet finds only transactional glamour in a club. Ohboy, adept yet trapped, drifts comically through urban traps. Linked by rehearsals for “City as Prey,” three episodes chronicle loneliness, friendship, and survival.
Continuity begins as a straight-forward story of an emotional homecoming and turns uncanny as the two protagonists – a middle aged couple living in a small town in Germany – repeatedly invite different young men into their home to perform an inscrutable ritual. This is a remake of Continuity (2012) by the same director, expanding on the original idea.
