The Story

Hollywood Dreamers

Aspiring actors and actresses talk about making it in Hollywood and how they perceive this world. Casting directors and filmmakers also share their perspectives.

Internet Love

Starting out as e-mail pen pals, Daniel and Laura soon fall in love. Only problem is that she lives in Germany and he lives in Los Angeles. When they finally arrange to meet in person, they discover that there is no chemistry between them.

Die Küken kommen

Six young men are disturbed by their girlfriends while looking for adventures in Munich after their discharge from the Bundeswehr.

Frühstück in Rom

A film critic falls in love.

Die glückliche Familie

The story of the Behringer family and their typical everyday problems.

The Gold of Love

Young Patricia wanders through a Viennese night full of lust for love, visions of drugs and violence, gleaming frenzy and dark alleys.

Italo Disco: The Sparkling Sound of the 80s

The history of italo disco, a musical genre that conquered the world during the incredible eighties, the most cybernetic decade; a style that was not just another kind of dance-pop music, but also the origin of an aesthetic, a true social phenomenon and the creative center of a very profitable industry.

Girls, Girls

An underage girl starts an affair with her much older employer. Then, her lover is sentenced for the seduction of a minor, and the young woman gets involved with his son, the junior head of the company. When his father is released from prison, father and son become rivals for their shared lover.

The Fan

The hero-worship that Simone has for a pop singer is built to a crescendo until she passes out when she finally sees him up-close in a crowd of fans. She is later shocked when he lets her know that he does not love her.

Open Wounds – A Journey through German Genre Films

A documentary about German cinema from 1960 to 1990. It follows "Verfluchte Liebe deutscher Film."

From UFA to Hollywood: Douglas Sirk Remembers

This 82-minute 1991 documentary by Eckhart Schmidt features a 1980 interview with Douglas Sirk in which he reflects on his career.

Animals United

A group of animals waiting for the annual flood they rely on for food and water discover that the humans, who have been destroying their habitats have built a dam for a leisure resort. The animals endeavour to save the delta and send a message to the humans not to interfere with nature.

The Sandman

Daniel and Clara are on a vacation in Italy. In the form of the mysterious "Sandman" Coppola, a figure from Daniel's childhood, returns to haunt him, while he succumbs to an obsessive love with an enigmatic woman of strange beauty: Olympia, who might be far more than she first appears to be...

Erotik auf der Schulbank

Three episodes depict events that actually took place in the years before the film was made. Three true‐life dramas explore teacher–student taboos: 1. Monika: A young teacher’s love for his pregnant 17‐year‐old student leads to his self‐incrimination amid legal peril. 2. Sybille: A 15‐year‐old fabricates a scandalous affair with her bachelor principal, ending in his suicide. 3. Fantasie: A 13‐year‐old boy’s infatuation with his teacher drives him to violence and a troubled return to reality.

Mythos Hollywood - Das Geheimnis des Erfolgs

Ekchart Schmidt examines the machinery behind the dream factory; the Hollywood myth is unmasked. How does the studio industry work? What role does marketing and the hype surrounding the stars play?

Fotovision: Photographie, Poesie, Musik

A Fotovision movie by Eckhart Schmidt

Irreversible

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

M.F.A.

After the accidental death of her rapist, an art student becomes an unlikely vigilante, set out to avenge college girls whose rapists were not charged.

Straw Dogs

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate.

Payback

With friends like these, who needs enemies? That's the question bad guy Porter is left asking after his wife and partner steal his heist money and leave him for dead -- or so they think. Five months and an endless reservoir of bitterness later, Porter's partners and the crooked cops on his tail learn how bad payback can be.

Days of Thunder

Talented but unproven stock car driver Cole Trickle gets a break and with the guidance of veteran Harry Hogge turns heads on the track. The young hotshot develops a rivalry with a fellow racer that threatens his career when the two smash their cars. But with the help of his doctor, Cole just might overcome his injuries-- and his fear.

Lady Snowblood

Yuki's family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.

This Man Must Die

When his young son is killed in a hit and run accident, Charles Thenier resolves to hunt down and murder the killer. By chance, Thenier makes the acquaintance of an actress, Helène Lanson, who was in the car at the time of the accident. He then meets Helène’s brother-in-law, Paul Decourt, a truly horrible individual.

15 Minutes

When Eastern European criminals Oleg and Emil come to New York City to pick up their share of a heist score, Oleg steals a video camera and starts filming their activities, both legal and illegal. When they learn how the American media circus can make a remorseless killer look like the victim and make them rich, they target media-savvy NYPD Homicide Detective Eddie Flemming and media-naive FDNY Fire Marshal Jordy Warsaw, the cops investigating their murder and torching of their former criminal partner, filming everything to sell to the local tabloid TV show "Top Story."

Sicko

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States whose main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance, the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

The Specialist

May Munro is a woman obsessed with getting revenge on the people who murdered her parents when she was still a girl. She hires Ray Quick, a retired explosives expert, to kill her parents' killers. When Ned Trent, embittered ex-partner of Quick's, is assigned to protect one of Quick's potential victims, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues.

Cocaine Bear

Inspired by a true story, an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converge in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.

Rambo: First Blood Part II

John Rambo is released from prison by the government for a top-secret covert mission to the last place on Earth he'd want to return - the jungles of Vietnam.

Changing Lanes

A rush-hour fender-bender on New York City's crowded FDR Drive, under most circumstances, wouldn't set off a chain reaction that could decimate two people's lives. But on this day, at this time, a minor collision will turn two complete strangers into vicious adversaries. Their means of destroying each other might be different, but their goals, ultimately, will be the same: Each will systematically try to dismantle the other's life in a reckless effort to reclaim something he has lost.

Live by Night

A group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the competition and the Ku Klux Klan.