The Big Mess

Gabi Teichert, a history teacher, is unhappy with the way history is portrayed in textbooks and is looking for an alternative, more practical approach to 'uncovering' the past, quite literally digging with the spade and dissecting books with hammers and drills.

Alexander Kluge follows his father, a doctor, in his daily activity.

A young German woman searches for happiness, liberation, and independence in the illusive wake of a transformative national recovery.

Nine fictitious documentaries and films reflect the mood of late 1970s Germany, particularly the two-month period in 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped by the RAF (Red Army Faction). The kidnap had been made to orchestrate the release of the original leaders of the RAF, aka the Baader-Meinhof.

A poignant film essay about 'superfluous people' facing up to a moment of crisis in their lives.

In Eschnapur, a German architect saves the life of the Maharajah's favorite temple dancer and becomes Maharajah's friend but their friendship is tested when the architect and the dancer fall in-love, triggering the Maharajah's vengeful ire.

Seetha and Harold Berger are rescued from the desert by a caravan and brought to a small village. However, the greedy owner of the house where they are lodged betrays the law of hospitality and reveals their location to Prince Ramigani. The couple tries to escape but is hunted and captured by Ramigani and his men. Meanwhile Irene Rhode and her husband Walter Rhode suspect that Maharaja Chandra is not telling the truth about Harold's destiny. The conspirator Ramigani forces Seetha to accept to get married with Chandra to provoke the wrath of the priests and get the alliance of Prince Padhu and his army. In the meantime, Harold succeeds in escaping from the dungeon and seeks out Seetha to save her.

The Indomitable Leni Peickert is a loose, half-hour sequel to Alexander Kluge's second feature film, Artists in the Big Top: Perplexed. This shorter work, seemingly assembled from leftover footage from the longer film, continues the story of the circus owner Leni Peickert after she first abandoned her idea of a radical circus in favor of a job in television. It opens where the previous film left off, at a TV station where Leni and her friends have gathered as employees, attempting to infiltrate the corporate establishment with their own revolutionary ideas.

The clownish security chief of a West German business is obsessed with protecting his factory from fancied and real breaches, especially from groups such as The Red Army Faction. Ferdinand's paranoia and methods can't be contained by his company. The sympathetically-drawn Ferdinand's ludicrous actions recall those of the cynical, disastrous axis between fascism and big business in 1930's Europe: satire of the rise of private security.

Roswitha runs an illegal abortion clinic in Frankfurt to support her student husband and children. When she is forced to close her practice she delves into political and social activism.

Willi endeavors to survive in a world where annihilistic galactic battles rage, by taking a job at the centre of power. But it's the wrong side that he takes in this civil war...

A young circus director ends up going into television after her father, a trapeze performer, dies in a circus accident.

Two women during WW2 living in a Hunsrück village embark on a trip to Vienna.

Combining fictional and documentary modes, the film takes a critical stance toward Frankfurt's public sphere and urban redevelopment. Despite the serious formal and political concerns of the film, Kluge's heightened sense of the absurd safeguards a reserve of utopian optimism.

Emotions and feelings should not be confused with sentimentality. Emotion is ancient and more powerful than any artistic expression. The film observes young couples facing difficulties while trying to move their love experiences towards clear decision making. A film full of ideas, details and associations, fictional scenes, documentary footage, archival materials and opera music.

The third episodic film, after Deutschland im Herbst and Der Kandidat, in which notable German filmmakers reflect on the state of their country. A collage of documentary and dramatised sequences dealing with such topics as overkill, peace demonstrations, NATO arms policy, and life after the next war.