Der schwarze Kasten

Lullabies are our first connection to the world – a universal experience we all share, yet it remains deeply personal. "Can you recall a song that your mother would sing for you to fall asleep?" is the question Tamara Trampe and Johann Feindt ask people they meet in the streets of Berlin.

Seldom does a documentary film accomplish so much as Beruf Neonazi. Aside from the rather frightening look into the current world of holocaust denial and pro Hitler ideology, the contents of the film were used as evidence to secure a court conviction.

Wundbrand is a document of war and life. Through images, conversations and sound collage, the film reveals the reality of the destruction of Sarajevo and its inhabitants.

In 1970, Melek Tez came to Berlin as a young worker from Turkey. A confident woman, she first countered racist resentments and remarks with irony and wit. Jokingly, she even referred to herself as a "Kümmeltürkin", a derogatory German term for Turkish migrants. Yet after fourteen humiliating years, her fighting spirit has given way to resignation: Melek Tez is returning to Turkey. Blending documentary, interviews and re-enacted scenes, director Jeanine Meerapfel chronicles Melek Tez' life experience.

It all started with a small exercise book. Its page were checkered with the courageous testimonies of 300 Central African women, girls and men. They reveal what Congolese mercenaries did to them. On their own initiative, they gathered together their testimonies in this book.

"A Woman" is a cinematic essay about identity. A search into the wounds of exile and a reflection on the function of memory. A haunting and intimate portrait of the director’s own mother. It is the story of an imitation artist, trying to adapt to the challenges of real life … as a woman.

Sandra Hüller portrays Ingeborg Bachmann on an imaginary day in Rome. Regina Schilling’s hybrid film weaves together reenactments, archival footage, and Bachmann’s own writings into a portrait that offers a refreshing new perspective on the author and positions her writings as a reference point in current debates on gender relations and power.

Benjamin Levi (Bruno Cathomas) is a Bavarian cattle dealer traveling to pre-World War II Germany on his annual trip to a remote farming village. Levi hopes to do some business and, more importantly, win the hand of the lovely Lisbeth (Caroline Ebner). But Nazi propaganda has gripped the small community and poisoned it forever. Now, Levi and Lisbeth are targets of hate in this provocative and shocking drama.

Again, the unemployed zookeeper Günther and the discarded salesman Wolfgang are looking for their great luck. Therefore, they get the help of a young man who, due to his autism, has extraordinary skills at the roulette table.

Citizens of East Germany talk about their experiences and feelings in the face of upcoming elections that will lead to reunification with the West. The past is tinged with regret, frustration and anger, while the future is uncertain.

A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific to make elaborate turtleshell masks have none left - they are all in foreign museums. In a quest to reclaim the past, Ephraim Bani, a wise and knowledgeable Torres Strait Islander, travels with his wife to the great museums of Europe where his heritage lies. The film, an SBS Independent production, shows that the thickest of masks cracks when a descendant of the original owners enters a museum.

The documentary film reflects on the war in Chechnya based on the experiences of young soldiers who return from the mission mentally and physically broken. Conceived as a montage of emotional confrontations, it gains from the closeness and trust between directors and protagonists. The young men's reflections are expanded and deepened by memories of an elderly Afghanistan veteran, scenes from the Moscow Committee of Soldiers' Mothers and images of a brutal operation by the Russian army against Chechens.

Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.

Thomas Brasch was born as a German-Jewish emigrant in England in order to move to the young GDR with his family at the beginning of the 1950s. His father Horst is primarily interested in helping to build the new German state. But Thomas prefers to realize himself as a writer and in doing so discovers his potential as a poetic rebel. His very first play was banned and soon afterwards he lost his place at the film school. When the tanks of the Soviet Union roll through the Czech capital Prague in 1968, Brasch and his girlfriend Sanda and other students try to call for protest in the streets of Berlin - and fail. His own father betrays him to the Stasi and allows Thomas to go to prison. After being paroled, he continues to try his hand at poet writing about love, revolt and death. In the GDR, however, you don't want to have anything to do with someone like him.

Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.