Germany

  • Rudolf Thome – Das Geheimnis (1995)

    Arthouse1991-2000GermanyRudolf Thome

    Quote:
    Drama of four friends who spend time together in the country when one of them meets a man who claims to be Jesus Christ who wants to share the love secret of the universe with her and so he impregnates her, dies in her bed, and then totally disappears, leaving the friends unsure if it all happenedRead More »

  • Hartmut Bitomsky and Heiner Mühlenbrock – Deutschlandbilder aka Pictures of Germany (1984)

    1981-1990DocumentaryExperimentalGermanyHartmut BitomskyHeiner MühlenbrockThird Reich Cinema

    This compilation film focuses on the contents of Nazi propaganda shorts such as “The Beauty of Work” (1934), “We Have No Problems” (1933), or “The Will To Live” (1944) that preceded the feature films in German movie theaters between 1933 and 1945. The shorts reveal that men and women workers were idealized, uniformity was stressed, optimism in the face of adversity was the goal, and, in general, all the classic lies that dictatorships use to control and mold their citizens are featured. Deutschland Bilder would be offensive to many because of its content alone, even more so when one remembers what these same Nazis were doing in the extermination camps. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Heinz Emigholz – D’Annunzios Höhle aka D’Annunzio’s Cave (2005)

    2001-2010ArchitectureDocumentaryGermanyHeinz EmigholzVideo Art

    Quote:
    Heinz Emigholz, the premiere purveyor of architectural oddities (Sullivan’s Bridges, Goff in the Desert), meticulously documents 15 rooms of the enormous Villa Cargnacco in Lombardy, Italy, designed by proto-fascist poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938). The controversial figure spent 17 years designing the Vittoriale, a state museum on Lake Garda, and furnishing the Villa Cargnacco, which is part of the grand complex. This unusual documentary resulted from a photography session in the villa, when four friends–cinematographers Irene von Alberti, Elfi Mikesch, Klaus Wyborny and Heinz Emigholz–simultaneously filmed the rooms and furnishings of the villa in their own specific styles.Read More »

  • Christian Schwochow – Deutschstunde AKA The German Lesson (2019)

    2011-2020Christian SchwochowDramaGermany

    An atmospheric adaptation of Siegfried Lenz’s timeless world bestseller.Read More »

  • Cynthia Beatt & Rudolf Thome – Beschreibung einer Insel AKA Description of an Island (1979)

    1971-1980Cynthia BeattDocumentaryGermanyRudolf Thome

    Quote:
    This film with a marked ethnographic nature, which was filmed without a pre-established plan and with a script that crosses the lines of documentary and fiction, tells the story of a group of five Germans who arrive on a remote island in the South Pacific called Parapara and belonging to Vanuatu. Their aim is to prepare a publication on the lives of the inhabitants of this remote island. The tasks were personally assigned: one would study the language, another would study the fauna; another the traditions, institutions and family systems; another the plants and another the songs and stories.Read More »

  • Leni Riefenstahl – Der Sieg des Glaubens AKA Victory of the Faith (1933)

    1931-1940DocumentaryGermanyLeni RiefenstahlThird Reich Cinema

    Plot
    Der Sieg des Glaubens (English: The Victory of Faith) is the first documentary directed by Leni Riefenstahl, who was hired despite opposition from Nazi officials that resented employing a woman — and a non-Party member too. Her film recounts the Fifth Party Rally of the Nazi Party, which occurred in Nuremberg from August 30 to September 3 in 1933.Read More »

  • Byambasuren Davaa – Das Lied von den zwei Pferden AKA The Two Horses of Genghis Khan (2009)

    2001-2010Byambasuren DavaaDocumentaryDramaGermanyMongolia

    Summary
    A promise, an old, destroyed horse head violin and a song believed lost lead the singer Urna back to Outer Mongolia. Her grandmother was forced to destroy her once loved violin in the tumult of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The ancient song of the Mongols, “The Two Horses of Genghis Khan”, was engraved on the violin’s neck. Only the violin’s neck and head survived the cultural storm. Now it is time to fulfill the promise that Urna made to her grandmother. Arrived in Ulan Bator, Urna brings the still intact parts of the violin – head and neck – to Hicheengui, a renowned maker of horse head violins, who will build a new body for the old instrument in the coming weeks. Then, Urna leaves for the interior to look there for the song’s missing verses. But she will be disappointed. None of the people whom she meets on the way appears to still know the old melody of the Mongols. Written by silkeRead More »

  • Hartmut Bitomsky – Staub AKA Dust (2007)

    Arthouse2001-2010DocumentaryGermanyHartmut Bitomsky

    A speck of dust is just about perceptible to the naked eye. It’s the smallest visible subject a film can be about – it’s a medium of disappearance and a criteria of perception. Wherever we go, it has already beaten us; wherever we turn, it follows us. It is our past, our present and our future. It is universal and has a name in every language. It keeps housewives busy, as well as scientists, inventors, artists and entire industrial branches. It is blamed for feeding vermin and causing illness. It takes ownership of our possessions, it penetrates laboratories, it creates planets and galaxies. We’re surrounded by it, it gets inside us, we shed it… It nestles right into the despair of its own existence.Read More »

  • Rolf Hansen – Der Weg ins Freie AKA The Way to Freedom (1941)

    1941-1950DramaGermanyRolf HansenThird Reich Cinema

    Synopsis:
    ‘In Vienna, during the 1848 Revolution, opera singer Antonia Corvelli marries Detlev von Blossin, a rich landowner. But, as she refuses to give up her career, her infuriated husband returns to Pomerania without her. After falling into the clutches of the cruel and wicked count Stefan Oginski, whose lover she unfortunately becomes, Antonia has no other choice but to pass for dead in order to escape him. She then returns to Italy where she joins small theater companies under various aliases. Until one day she is overtaken by her fate…’
    – Guy BellingerRead More »

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