German

Hollywood Reporter:
Director Heinrich Breloer mixes drama with documentary in his marathon TV biopic of radical playwright and leftist icon Bertolt Brecht.

Interweaving glossy dramatic scenes with interview clips featuring former Brecht associates, some specially shot and others dredged from the archives, Breloer provides a wealth of material but never quite breathes life into his charismatic, contradictory subject. The blend of fictionalized and documentary elements is often deftly done, with interlaced scenes that rhyme and chime like music. Read More »

Brenner Pass, Alpine border, spring 2016: the Austrian government announces the construction of a border fence, expecting a shift of the refugee routes to Italy after the Balkan route is closed. The residents fear the fence just as much as the supposedly threatening influx of foreigners to their homeland.

Two years later, the fence is still rolled up in a container, as the inrush of refugees never occurred.Read More »

Synopsis:

‘Li and Al share a cramped little room in an old building, which goes a long way towards explaining why they are thinking of divorce. It is practically impossible for Lisa and Alfred to find another fiat in their district, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Particularly Al feels shut in, cramped and that his personal freedom is curbed. He is an enthusiastic car mechanic and motor-bike freak but cannot pursue his interests and hobbies. He wants to discover new things and tryout his own potential, developing his abilities to the full.Read More »

A German pimp with a penchant for violence. The prostitute with a heart of gold who loves him. The demented mother who ruined him. Lots of depressing sex scenes set in dreary working-class apartments.Read More »

Rosa von Praunheim portrays some Berlin citizens which are all connected to the GLBT community.
This doc works as a sequel to his 1989 movie “Überleben in New York” (Staying alive in New York) in some ways.Read More »

Quote:
Francis, 30-year-old refugee is the sole survivor of a boat which crossed the Mediterranean illegally from West Africa. When he wakes up on a beach in the south of Europe, he is determined to live a regular, decent life from now on. But he winds up in present-day Berlin where a stateless person without a work permit is treated just as mercilessly. He initially resists an offer to deal drugs in Hasenheide park, but then comes under the influence of Reinhold, his neurotic, sex-addicted pal, a drug dealer and human trafficker who takes him in. He is a man born to destroy the people around. When he meets club owner Eva and, after several dramatic experiences, the escort girl Mieze, he feels he’s found something for the first time, something he’s never known before: a little bit of happiness.Read More »

Undine works as a historian lecturing on Berlin’s urban development. But when the man she loves leaves her, the ancient myth catches up with her. Undine has to kill the man who betrays her and return to the water.Read More »

Quote:
A deadly car crash sets off three parallel stories of women at crisis points, faltering behind the doors of the same, plain Vienna apartment block. A bored nurse with a stable, comfortable family life has a wild but almost-wordless extramarital affair with a fashion-conscious traveling salesman, who’s obsessed with sex photos. An unstable young Austrian grocery checker lies to hold on to her philandering Yugoslavian boyfriend, claiming she’s pregnant. Finally, a recent divorcée whose violent, ex-husband is a King of Denial intent on getting her back. Will the residents’ fibs and moral failures save or destroy them ? Can the women safely express their fears ?Read More »

Rosa von Praunheim sheds light on his life story and the most important stages in it. Born Holger Radtke, he moved to Frankfurt am Main with his adoptive parents at the age of twelve. With his documentary `Not the homosexual is perverse, but the situation in which he lives’ from 1971, he is considered a cofounder of the political gay and lesbian movement in Germany.Read More »