Torsten Körner

For a long time, the Bonn Republic was a smoke-filled place with heavy leather armchairs occupied by old men. Women were largely excluded from the “men’s sport” of politics. In *THE UNYIELDING*, the leading female politicians of that era now recount how they fought for a voice and power in the face of all opposition—throughout, and indeed especially during, the major crises and debates of the Bonn Republic. “Women, if we do nothing today, we will live tomorrow as we did the day before yesterday.” Annemirl Bauer, 1988

The documentary Schwarze Adler (Black Eagles) lets black players of the German national football team tell their personal stories for the first time. What road did they take before they got to where we cheer for them? What hurdles did they have to overcome? What prejudices and racist hostility were they exposed to – and what was it like in the past, what is it like today?

Documentary about former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s political ascent and mental strength, featuring interviews with her and a variety of notable politicians.

The film tells the story of the fight for a national soccer team in West Germany and East Germany. It tells of the forgotten lifetime achievements of the German female soccer pioneers and the fight for their place "on the pitch". A fight full of unbelievable, almost absurd twists and turns and stories that reveal a great deal about male heroic images and clichéd images of women in East and West.

East Berlin, October 7, 1989: While the state elite was celebrating the GDR's 40th birthday before the eyes of the world, resistance was forming in the streets. Guests celebrated in the Palace of the Republic in Berlin. In front of it, people loudly demanded reforms. There were also demonstrations outside Berlin, for example in Plauen. The situation escalates ...

The film documents the life and political career of Angela Merkel. It shows archive images and interviews with contemporaries, including Franz Müntefering, Edmund Stoiber and Norbert Blüm, as well as an exclusive interview with Angela Merkel.

Gerhard Schröder was the last SPD chancellor. He was always a controversial figure within his party. To some, he was a self-centered individual and a careerist; to others, he was a gifted campaigner and a successful modernizer. It is undisputed that his popularity played a decisive role in helping the SPD seize power in 1998. But what remains of the Red-Green coalition project that came to such an abrupt end in 2005? The Agenda reforms? The energy transition? The SPD’s identity crisis? Since Gerhard Schröder’s defeat by Angela Merkel in 2005, the party has been in decline; the label “people’s party” no longer seems to apply. What responsibility does the SPD’s most recent chancellor bear for this decline? How did the unprecedented Agenda 2010 reform program come about in the first place?

GOOD MORNING, MY BEAUTIES! The film is a vibrant group portrait of East German women from a wide variety of walks of life in the GDR. What they all have in common is that they grew up in the GDR and were shaped by it; they do not view this background as a “burden,” but rather base their self-image and identity on it. The film explores and describes the true state of women’s equality in a country that claimed to have resolved this issue once and for all—in sharp contrast to the Federal Republic of Germany. The book features the voices of female musicians, writers, LPG chairwomen, workers, painters, politicians, and scholars. They all recount the daily grind, their everyday lives, and their struggle for recognition in a repressive state that persecuted, punished, and imprisoned its opponents.

The documentary “3 Days in September” focuses on the weekend of September 4–6, when Angela Merkel decided to allow refugees and asylum seekers from Hungary to enter Germany. It explores the controversial and challenging ambiguity surrounding this date and seeks to get to the bottom of it, to find out what really happened.

The three-part documentary “Beckenbauer – The Last Emperor” chronicles a life so exuberant it feels as though it were more than one. Torsten Körner, who co-wrote the highly acclaimed biography “Der freie Mann” with Franz Beckenbauer 20 years ago, has crafted a historically precise, at times nostalgic journey through life that connects Beckenbauer’s private life with his public one, the real with the imaginary. From Munich’s “Giesing” neighborhood—known as the “Glasscherbenviertel”—to the hearts of the German people and ever higher, all the way to New York; from the 1966 World Cup to becoming a global figure; and as the “Emperor” and a “beacon of light,” to the most famous German in the world: “Beckenbauer – The Last Emperor” illustrates, as rarely before, what constituted the modernity of both the soccer player and the “pop star” Beckenbauer.