Germany

Synopsis:
A strange case baffles the police and the citizens of a German small town. A two-year old girl has disappeared. There are suspects, innocents, guilty ones and a web of lies. It’s saturday afternoon, and Achim’s parents are invited for a topping-out ceremony. The neighbour’s daughter, Monika (Renate Roland), is the babysitter for Achim (Sascha Urchs) and his little sister Kathrin, but Monika doesn’t take the job too serious. She’d rather go for a ride with her boyfriend. Through a unforeseen row of circumstances, Achim becomes the murderer of his sister, and hides the body in a wrecked car on the scrapyard. When the parents return home, a frantic search for the little child begins. Only the father (Sieghardt Rupp) seems to know the truth…Read More »

Quote:
Aeronautic engineer Graham Dorrington tries his hand at a journey towards the massive waterfalls of Kaieteur, in the heart of Guyana, hoping that his helium airship will make it successfully over the treetops. His undertaking is not without risks: twelve years earlier, a similar expedition that attempted to fly over a rainforest habitat in Sumatra had culminated in the tragic death of Dieter Plage, a friend of Dorrington. Werner Herzog is among the protagonists of the expedition, embarking in a new dirigible prototype to observe the lost world of this uncontaminated rainforest, one of the least explored territories on the planet.Read More »

Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art:
Posing as a West German TV production crew, the two East German directors of this film persuaded a former leading German mercenary of the Congo civil war (one of many!) to discuss his activities and heroic achievements in what is surely one of the most sensational exposés of its kind. Continually smiling or laughing, this man, a self-acknowledged Nazi, proudly reveals that he went to the Congo to save Western civilization from Bolshevism – to complete the work of the Nazis. Dressed in his military jungle uniform (with his Second World War decorations) he waxes eloquent about the ‘colours’ of South Africa, ‘explains’ apartheid, and freely discusses his ‘adventures’. Shots of corpses, tortures, and executions of Blacks are intercut. It is not often that one can see and hear a real, ‘live’ Nazi in action, talking (more or less) freely because he presumed himself to be among friends instead of with two of the most clever political propagandists of our time, working for the other side.Read More »

One of the five episodes of Bedtime stories for children by Harun Farocki
Quote:
The five Einschlafgeschichten are bed-time stories for children, made 1976/77, in which Farocki uses simple objects to elucidate cinematographic method. […]

The stories deal with bridges, cable cars and ships crossing roads. What is worth saying? What is worth remembering? The two girls in the film imagine what is shown. Bridges that move. Something quite different to ‘bridges’. […]Read More »

One of the five episodes of Bedtime stories for children by Harun Farocki.
Quote:
The five Einschlafgeschichten are bed-time stories for children, made 1976/77, in which Farocki uses simple objects to elucidate cinematographic method. […]

The stories deal with bridges, cable cars and ships crossing roads. What is worth saying? What is worth remembering? The two girls in the film imagine what is shown. Bridges that move. Something quite different to ‘bridges’. […]Read More »

Quote:
A shunter’s job is to slow down, link, and unlink train wagons at a central station. The film documents – without any commentary – the working hours of few shunters at the shunting-station Dresden-Friedrichstadt, which was the largest such station in all of the former German Democratic Republic. They work day and night, amidst snow and fog at the railway tracks, speaking only as much as necessary.Read More »

J. Steed@IMDb wrote:
The original play “Gestern und Morgen” had its premiere in 1930 and was an immediate success. This prompted Carl Froelich to adapt the play for film. Both leading actress of the play Hertha Thiele (her first film) and the original director of the play Leontine Sagan (also her first film) were invited to join. The direction was split into direction of the cast and mise-en-scene by Leontine Sagan and overall direction by Carl Froelich; this means that Froelich was responsible for the overall quality of the film (in German: Künstleriche Oberleitung).Read More »

A bizarre cash-in, Die Graue Dame is a quasi-Holmes picture based on a theatrical play entirely unrelated to the works of Doyle and released shortly after the Bruno Güttner-starring Der Hund von Baskerville (1937). Here, young Jimmy Ward – played by Hermann Speelmans (1906-1960), who’d featured in the vile Nazi propaganda feature Hitlerjunge Quex: ein Film vom Opfergeist der Deutschen Jugend (1933), an immorality tale designed to drum up recruitment into the Hitler Youth – infiltrates a criminal gang, only to reveal at the last moment that he is, in fact, none other than an undercover Sherlock Holmes. One can only presume that the ‘John’ – who, according to the credits list, acts as Holmes’ ‘servant’ – was intended to be none other than the hapless Dr Watson. ~Alan Barnes, Sherlock Holmes on ScreenRead More »

Based on Jürgen Breests book Wechselbalg (1980.)
IMDB:
A married couple adopts a child. The mother’s relationship with the new family member quickly deteriorates.
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