Downfall
In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.
Your Excellency
Lopitos, who is horribly inefficient but quick-witted, is invited (because of the current ambassador's superstition about 13 sitting down to a meal) to a banquet attended by the ambassadors of both superpowers. After the news of a series of coups d'état in Los Cocos arrives throughout the meal, Lopitos becomes the official ambassador. At a summit of world leaders, the representatives of the two world superpowers court the allegiances of third-world diplomats to tilt the balance of global power in their favor. The last diplomat to remain unaligned, Lopitos instead harangues the superpowers for infringing on the rights of developing countries to self determination, talking to them with his point of view as a citizen not as ambassador because he arranged his demise as ambassador one day before his speech.
The Lawyers
In the early 1970s, Otto Schily and Hans-Christian Ströbele were part of the group of attorneys of the left-wing extraparliamentary opposition in Germany. In this function, they, for instance, represented the militant Horst Mahler in court. One thing that united all three of them was their goal to create a new and different republic. They viewed Federal Germany as an oppressor of political freedom and as a vassal of the United States. Today, Schily is a former Federal Minister of the Interior with a firmly conservative stance and Ströbele is a well-respected member of the left wing of the Green Party in the German parliament while Mahler has again come into conflict with the law because of his extremist right-wing activities.
The Bengal Files
A criminal investigator uncovers a web of corruption during a missing person investigation, while a figure connected to the case reflects on the communal violence which broke out ahead of India's partition.
A Traveler's Needs
Iris, a woman abroad in Seoul, teaches French and English in an idiosyncratic fashion that allows her to pursue her own philosophical and personal interests. Through four encounters over a single day, Iris probes students and strangers for information about poetry, their own histories, and their relationship to their egos.
Laissez-faire
A historical perspective to understand Neoliberalism and to understand why this ideology today so profoundly influences the choices of our governments and our lives.
Together
Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.
Natura
An unsettling mystery about desperation and class divisions in the age of digital capitalism.
Combat Girls
Marisa, a 20-year-old German girl, hates foreigners, Jews, cops, and everyone she finds guilty for the decline of her country. She provokes, drinks, fights and her next tattoo will be a portrait of Adolf Hitler. But Marisa's convictions begin to crumble when she meets a young Afghan refugee, and she learns that the black and white principles of her gang are not the only way.
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology
A journey into the labyrinthine heart of ideology, which shapes and justifies both collective and personal beliefs and practices: with an infectious zeal and voracious appetite for popular culture, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek analyzes several of the most important films in the history of cinema to explain how cinematic narrative helps to reinforce prevailing ethics and political ideas.
Hitler’s Games: Berlin 1936 in Colour
In 1931, Germany was awarded the Olympic Games in the hope this would draw them into the international community and world peace would be promoted through sport. For two weeks in August 1936 cameras captured the world’s greatest sporting spectacle, including the Gold Medal triumphs of record-breaking sprinter Jesse Owens. The Berlin Olympics were groundbreaking – many innovations introduced in 1936 such as television coverage and the torch relay became part of every subsequent Games. Hitler’s Games in Colour tells the story of the remarkable amateurs who excelled, but also how Hitler used the Games as propaganda for his brutal regime, to show the Nazis as benign and their military ambitions as modest. Using black and white archive, transformed by cutting-edge restoration and colourisation, this is the story of 16 days that fooled the world…
Democracy Is ...
The film is a controversy on democracy. Is our society really democratic? Can everyone be part of it? Or is the act of being part in democracy dependent to the access on technology, progression or any resources of information, as philosophers like Paul Virilio or Jean Baudrillard already claimed?
Disney-Ideologie
Fairy tales are never just fairy tales. They shape how we think about power, inequality, and society. This film reveals what lies behind the colorful facade.
Africa Light / Gray Zone
"Africa Light" - as white local citizens call Namibia. The name suggests romance, the beauty of nature and promises a life without any problems in a country where the difference between rich and poor could hardly be greater. Namibia does not give that impression of it. If you look at its surface it seems like Africa in its most innocent and civilized form. It is a country that is so inviting to dream by its spectacular landscape, stunning scenery and fascinating wildlife. It has a very strong tourism structure and the government gets a lot of money with its magical attraction. But despite its grandiose splendor it is an endless gray zone as well. It oscillates between tradition and modernity, between the cattle in the country and the slums in the city. It shuttles from colonial times, land property reform to minimum wage for everyone. It fluctuates between socialism and cold calculated market economy.
Information Violence
Silent Gunpowder
Silent Gunpowder (Serbo-Croatian: Gluvi barut) is a Yugoslavian war film Based on a novel by Branko Ćopić and set during World War II, the film tells the story of a Serbian village in the mountains of Bosnia and its villagers who found themselves divided along two opposing ideological lines, represented by the Chetniks and the Partisans. These two opposing sides are personified in the Partisan commander Španac and a former Royal Army officer Radekić. Španac sees Radekić as the cause of villagers' resistance to the new, Communist, ideology and so the main plot axis is the conflict between them. At the 1990 Pula Film Festival, the film won the Big Golden Arena for Best Film, as well as the awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Branislav Lečić), Best Film Score (Goran Bregović). The film was also shown at the 1991 Moscow International Film Festival, where both Branislav Lečić and Mustafa Nadarević won the Silver St. George Award for their performances.
Putin's Kiss
Masha Drokova is a rising star in Russia's popular nationalistic youth movement, Nashi. A smart, ambitious teenager who – literally – embraced Vladimir Putin and his promise of a greater Russia, her dedication as an organizer is rewarded with a university scholarship, an apartment, and a job as a spokesperson. But her bright political future falters when she befriends a group of liberal journalists who are critical of the government, including blogger Oleg Kashin, who calls Nashi a "group of hooligans," and she's forced to confront the group's dirty – even violent – tactics.
Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder
The poet and painter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is among the world's living monuments to arts and letters. For well over a half century, Ferlinghetti helped shape the currents of poetry and literature with his forceful engagement with society and an ideological position that often found him at odds with the political currents of his day. Ferlinghetti's quiet, behind the scenes demeanor and disarming mien may have assuaged, or even fooled, certain opponents, while in reality he was a literary mercenary, a rebel at the forefront of our own cultural revolution.
The Flight
When Dr. Schmith's proposal for international research on infant mortality is rejected, he decides to leave East Germany and strikes a deal with an escape agency that promises him a leading position at a children's hospital in West Germany. But then the decision is reversed: the project is approved and his international colleagues want Dr. Schmith to head the GDR section. Moreover, he falls in love with his new colleague, Katharina. Schmith initially tries to ignore the arrangements he made with the escape agency, but they blackmail him. Things soon turn deadly...
Cinema in the Land of Comrade Kim
The love of Kim Jong Il, the former dictator of North Korea, for cinema and his adventures, including the kidnapping of a director.