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.

1927-09-23 | de

Nick Cave: Stranger in a Strange Land

Documentary made for Dutch television about Nick Cave in Berlin in 1987.

1987-04-01 | en

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.

2014-11-06 | de

Rhin et Danube

A documentary produced by the French armed forces which chronicles the way of France’s “1ere armée” in the second world war from the days it first crossed the Rhine in March of 1945, through the liberation of a POW-camp in Swabia, until the forces reached the Danube and the Alps at the end of the war and the day French troops marched in the victory parade in Berlin.

1948-01-01 | en

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.

1996-05-01 | en

Heimatkunde

Former "Titanic" satire magazine editor Martin Sonneborn takes an undercover trip around Berlin and discovers the East-German mentality and what is left of the socialist German Democratic Republic.

2008-10-01 | de

Peter Eisenman: Building Germany's Holocaust Memorial

This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.

2009-02-20 | en

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

1989-01-06 | de

Das Märkische Viertel - Aussichten und Einblicke

Documentary about a district of Berlin

1973-01-01 | de

Berlin Geheimoperation Tunnel

2011-01-01 | de

100 Years of the UFA

The intricate history of UFA, a film production company founded in 1917 that has survived the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, the Adenauer era and the many and tumultuous events of contemporary Germany, and has always been the epicenter of the German film industry.

2017-08-28 | de

Grenzpunkt Beton

Documentary short film about the afterlife of the remnants of the Berlin Wall.

2015-01-01 | de

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.

2008-02-28 | de

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.

2014-11-09 | en

Prinzessinnenbad

A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.

2007-05-31 | de

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.

2002-02-09 | de

Tunnel to Freedom

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

2021-07-22 | de

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.

2019-10-09 | de

Helga Paris, Fotografin

2019-11-08 | de

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.

1950-10-01 | de