Die Welt der Gewürze

Ivan, first tsar of Russia. History will remember him as "the Terrible. Russian people love him for centuries. He liberates Russia from foreign oppressors, demands absolute obedience and loyalty in order to radically modernise Russia? Ivan IV, Grand Duke of Moscow, first Tsar of Russia by the grace of God. A madman? A sadist?

What lies hidden beneath Moscow? Subway palaces full of Soviet propaganda, Stalin's magnificent bunkers, centuries-old river systems. For decades, there have been repeated clues, cryptic statements and hints about Moscow's underground. The cinematic search for clues shows Stalin's command bunker and the government object GO-42, a headquarters of the Soviet military during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. A residential house with potted plants and curtains was built over GO-42 as camouflage. Until the end of the Cold War, specially trained soldiers took care of the bourgeois residential charm and turned on the lights in the evening while 2,000 people threatened the world around the clock with intercontinental missiles. The documentary also shows encounters with the illegal explorers of these complex transportation and housing systems, the Diggers.

On the far west of the Australian continent, with the limitless Indian Ocean beyond, there is a set of islands whose animals defy all laws of nature. The three islands lie side by side, but each is ruled by a different animal. One by a unique marsupial, the second by a penguin and the third by one of the world’s most venomous snakes, as though evolution has divided the real estate equitably. And on the islands each animal has become stranger than ever – with a set of features so unique they are bizarre. One of the worlds ‘happiest’, yet most vulnerable marsupials, the Quokka thrives only on Rottnest Island. In almost plague proportions over ten thousand of the strange relic wallabies live here. How do they survive here in such inhospitable conditions and nowhere else? For the first time in the world we film the life-cycle of the mysterious Quokka, the Little Penguin and the Tiger Snake, using the latest filming equipment and techniques.

A documentary of early airplane pilot and WW1 fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, famously known as The Red Baron.