Discoveries from Germany World Cinema

The greatness, fall and renaissance of Hammer, the flagship company of British popular cinema, mainly from 1955 to 1968. Tortured women and sadistic monsters populated oppressive scenarios in provocative productions that shocked censorship and disgusted critics but fascinated the public. Movies in which horror was shown in offensive colors: dreadful stories, told without prejudices, that offered fear, blood, sex and stunning performances.

NY private eye Jeff Milton is investigating a case of kidnapping in Caracas.

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?

The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.

Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.

In 1923 Berlin, following the suicide of his brother, an American acrobat struggles to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism, and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

Schoolgirls before high school graduation - By law they are of age, but despite their physical maturity, both innocent and experienced young women can get into big trouble. The 9th Schoolgirl Report reveals the sometimes grotesque transition from youthful rebellion to responsibility. Six different stories reveal tender confessions and sensational revelations that get to the heart of young adults' desires and problems.

While spending the summer at her grandmother's farm, a girl discovers a talent for communicating with horses and tries to tame a fierce stallion.

When German-raised Mavi learns she belongs to a superrich Turkish dynasty, new family expectations quickly turn her world and love life upside down.

In a future world where the disease has been finally defeated and everything can be sold, even the crude spectacle of death, the rare case of a dying woman becomes the morbid theme of a revolutionary reality show, broadcast through the curious eyes of a peculiar camera.

Finally out again. The attempt to cheat his boss out of a truckload cost haulage driver Oswald a year of his life and his job. Now it's back home to the prefabricated building. It's just in time that Oswald's buddy Karl knows about trophies made from old D-Mark coins. In the iron foundry on the outskirts of the city, old coins worth several hundred thousand Deutschmarks are regularly stored for further processing - virtually unguarded. As the old coins can still be exchanged, this is a small but sure coup. While Karl is still laughing at Oswald's naivety, he is already beginning to put his plan into action. In a series of tragic and absurd situations, he recruits a team that couldn't be more different, from doped athletes to hated ex-Stasi men. They are united by their desire to use the money to make a difference.

A dramatization of several episodes in the life of Christ.

Ida Kronenberg must transfer to a new school, where she soon realizes the students are unkind to each other. However, that all changes when a new teacher, Miss Cornfield, begins to educate them on the value of friendship and magic.

Three activists cobble together a kidnapping plot after they encounter a businessman in his home.

Starting in late May 1944, during the German retreat on the Eastern Front, Captain Stransky (Helmut Griem) orders Sergeant Steiner (Richard Burton) to blow up a railway tunnel to prevent Russian forces from using it. Steiner's platoon fails in its mission by coming up against a Russian tank. Steiner then takes a furlough to Paris just as the Allies launch their invasion of Normandy.

Croatia is calling! The 12th grade of a Berlin high school is going on a graduation trip. Together with the stressed teacher Mrs. Gruber and the over-committed teacher Georg, the trip doesn't start as planned: In the so-called Eco-Hostel the dream of an Insta-worthy beach vacation with endless parties seems to burst before it has even begun. Yet McLarry in particular had high hopes of distraction: he's the only one who didn't pass his A-levels and who can't actually afford the class trip. He is also not yet over his breakup with Bella. But then the ray of hope - his favorite rapper and idol Zeno is also in Croatia! The perfect opportunity for McLarry to present him his own songs. Together with his best buddy Cornelius and Best Friends Bella and Alena, they break away from the class field trip and head to Zeno's villa. With the hopelessly overtaxed chaperone Georg in tow, they embark on the gnarliest adventure of their lives...

Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

An affluent city is covered in snow, all seems perfect – on the surface. Divorcé Rolf is doing his best to rebuild his relationship with his daughter. Pregnant Lena appears to be living a faultless family life with her husband and son. Social worker Judith has a tough job and escapes it through her fantasies, whilst widowed Maria has finally built up the courage to invite her male acquaintance to a romantic dinner. In the course of one day, all of them will cross paths with the Bulgarian Mia, who works in the red-light trade and their seemingly perfect lives will never be the same…

Tafiti, a young meerkat, initially rejects friendship with Bristles, a bush pig. When his grandpa is bitten by a snake, Tafiti sets off to find the flower for the cure. Bristles wants to prove that adventures are always better with friends.

Dennis is a new inmate. Mike is an older black inmate. Together the two face hostile prison officals and inmates in their attempts to become a loving couple.

Palermo, Sicily, 1980. Mafia member Tommaso Buscetta decides to move to Brazil with his family fleeing the constant war between the different clans of the criminal organization. But when, after living several misfortunes, he is forced to return to Italy, he makes a bold decision that will change his life and the destiny of Cosa Nostra forever.

Retired tax official Willi Winzig spends his retirement happily and contentedly in his home. However, this changes when his sister Heidelinde, her daughter and his father want to move in with him, and as Willi is a good-natured man, he takes them in, but because they have no money and his pension is not enough for all four of them, he has to take on a new job. He gets a job as a salesman for household appliances, but his good nature gets in the way again.

Lured by quick money, David a loving family man and aspiring star lawyer lives a dangerous double life. While under the assumption the end would always justify the means he gets mixed-up in a political intrigue.

Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.

In 1912, the Titanic embarks on its inevitable collision course with history. In the wake of the over-spending required to build the largest luxury ship in the world, White Star Line executive Sir Bruce Ismay schemes to reverse the direction of his company's plummeting stock value. Onboard the Titanic, brave German 1st Officer Petersen struggles to convince his self-important British superiors not to overexert the ship's engines.

At a tennis club in rural Germany, preparations for the summer party are led by Heribert. When a separate grill is suggested for Erol, the club's only Muslim member, tensions flare. What begins as a simple discussion quickly turns into a debate about societal and personal conflicts, threatening to tear the club apart.

Although he actually just wanted to steal money, the crook Denis finds himself in the position of caretaking for the stroke patient Raimund. When Raimund's granddaughter Charlotte turns up, Denis has enough of it and wants to skip. But because of an huge blizzard, escape is unimaginable.

Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.

Two men, part tramp, part pilgrim, are on their way from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. On their way, they meet a vast assortment of characters—some truculent, some violent, and some bizarre; they experience many adventures—some mysterious, some erotic, some even supernatural.

Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.

Momo is a young orphan girl who lives in the ruins of an old Roman amphitheater and becomes friends with everybody in the neighborhood. But when a powerful international corporation starts stealing everybody’s time, nobody has any time left for her, let alone their friends or families. Momo, together with Master Hora, the custodian of time, are the only ones who can go up against the time thieves before all is lost forever.

While James More is held captive by terrorists in Somalia, thousands of miles away on the Greenland Sea, his lover Danny Flinders prepares to dive herself in a submersible into the deep bottom of the ocean, tormented by the memories of their brief encounter in France and her inability to know his whereabouts.

After Clown Teddy lost his son, he lost his gift for laughter. He opened a joke shop and lives above the shop. His landlady has had a foster son since birth, and Teddy decides to raise the child, who always believed that Teddy was his father. When the mother suddenly appears five years later and wants her son, Teddy decides to run away with the child and goes back onstage with his son. Will the family catch up with them, or will the mother never get her son back?

Mastro Geppetto is a poor carpenter with no wife and no children. The man is very lonely, and after trading a piece of wood with his colleague Mastro Ciliegia, decides to build himself a puppet to keep him company.

In Nazi-occupied France, a German officer is assassinated. The Germans demand justice, and the Vichy government is quick to capitulate. Unable to apprehend the actual culprits, Minister of Justice Joseph Barthélémy decides the execution of token Frenchmen will suffice, but the problem is finding judges and jurors eager to participate in a sham trial of innocent men. The solution is a Special Section, a court comprised of individuals handpicked for this exact purpose.

Constance, 1410. Marie, daughter of the richest bourgeois of the city, is on the eve of marrying a prestigious lawyer, son of an earl. Although the compromise fills with pride the girl's father, anxious to ennoble, Marie is not just convinced about her fiancé, who she has only seen twice. Her suspicions are confirmed tragically on the eve of the wedding when, after signing the marriage contract, a stranger breaks into the house ensuring that Marie has slept with other men in exchange for gifts, like a vile harlot. From that moment, the life of the girl will give a terrible unexpected turnaround. Alone, with his reputation ruined, she will have no choice to survive than partnering with a prostitute and lying on the roads.

Happily engaged to her handsome fiance, Charles, Fanny is soon hit with one misfortune after another until she is forced to become a prostitute to survive. This is the story, with many erotic asides, of her struggle to regain her pride in herself and find happiness in life once again.

An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel, is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.

A U.S. intelligence general recalls three Cold War cases of Soviet, French and Italian spies.

Frenchman Abel Tiffauges is a naive man who lives a simple life working as a mechanic. Falsely accused of being a child abuser, he is recruited as a soldier when World War II begins, but is captured soon and taken to the heart of Nazi Germany.

Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola, a seductive cabaret singer-prostitute exults in her power as a temptress of men, but she wants out—she wants money, property, and love. Pitting a corrupt building contractor against the new straight-arrow building commissioner, Lola launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale. Shot in childlike candy colors, Fassbinder’s homage to Josef von Sternberg’s classic The Blue Angel stands as a satiric tribute to capitalism.

On the cusp of her 13th birthday, Betty Flood – budding musician and magical being – just wants to be like the rest of her fabulous, but very different family, so why is her magical Mum so against it? As Betty wrestles with this, she also learns the amazing truth about her family and discovers that the not so normal, the magical and the musical are all a part of her fabulously freaky family. It's very freaky, so be freaked freaky ahh deaky peaky neaky seaky peaky poo.

Gwen has just discovered, that she's the final member of the secret time-traveling Circle of Twelve. Now she has to juggle with constant trips to the past, her relationships with Gideon and figuring out dark secrets surrounding the Circle.

When marauding Romans capture - and catapult - their pal Getafix into lands unknown, the shrewd and cunning Asterix and his able sidekick Obelix spring into action! But their journey leads them to a strange and dangerous new world, where they must face a tribe of Indians, a stampeding herd of buffalo and a medicine man with designs on their magic potion!

With the intention to break free from the strict familial restrictions, a suicidal young woman sets up a marriage of convenience with a forty-year-old addict, an act that will lead to an outburst of envious love.

A series of explosions carried out by an oil drilling platform in the North Sea causes little earthquakes and alarm the population of coastal areas closest to the epicenter.

The story of a German singer named Willie, who while working in Switzerland, falls in love with a Jewish composer named Robert, whose family is helping people to flee from the Nazis. Robert’s family is skeptical of Willie, thinking she could be a Nazi as she becomes famous for singing the song “Lili Marleen”.

As thoroughly unlikeable a robber as ever walked the West, Joe nonetheless robs from the rich and gives to the poor. Not only is he a murderous, ill-tempered sort, he is bad-mannered, too. When beautiful Sonny decides he should be her man and teach her how to be a proper outlaw, sparks fly.

Saara and Robert are living a love that is free from traditional conventions and role models. They set off to an extensive summer holiday on a lonely island in the Finnish archipelago where the tension between them escalates and becomes a fight for survival.

A year has gone by since Jim Button and his best friend, the engine driver Luke, returned from their dangerous adventure in Dragon City. Life on Morrowland goes its leisurely way again. Suddenly, dark clouds are gathering over the tranquil island of Morrowland: the notorious pirate gang "The Wild 13" has learned that the dragon Mrs Grindtooth has been conquered by Jim and Luke and now swears revenge. To protect Morrowland from another threat, the two of them set off with their steam engines Emma and Molly on a dangerous journey where they meet old friends like princess Li Si, Mr. Tur Tur and Nepomuk and make new friends with Sursulapichi, a real mermaid. On their adventure, Jim's most fervent wish might also come true: to find out the truth about his mysterious origins.

Undine is a historian and tour guide at the Berlin City Museum specializing in urban development, while Christoph is an industrial diver. Linked by a love of the water, the two form an intense bond, which can only do so much to help Undine overcome the considerable baggage of her former affair.

When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.

German journalist Philip Winter has a case of writer’s block when trying to write an article about the United States. He decides to return to Germany, and while trying to book a flight, encounters a German woman and her nine year old daughter Alice doing the same. The three become friends (almost out of necessity) and while the mother asks Winter to mind Alice temporarily, it quickly becomes apparent that Alice will be his responsibility for longer than he expected.

Junior police constable Karl-Heinz has just been given a telling-off by his boss for allegedly botching a major operation against car thieves. Now he senses an opportunity to rehabilitate himself when a gang of high-flying highway speeders catch his eye during a traffic check. Karl-Heinz decides to go undercover with the gang and gets to know their colorful characters. He soon takes more pleasure in the illegal speeding than is good for his health and career.

A German student, Stefan, now finished with his studies, hitchhikes to Paris. There he meets a free-spirited American girl, Estelle, who he follows to Ibiza. The two begin a sad and dark path into heroin addiction.

Once Upon a Time there lived a brave man, Michael, who was unaware what fear is. At the same time, Princess Elisabeth lived with her father, the king, in a makeshift tent city, because their castle was uninhabitable and haunted by ghosts, its treasure cursed. If he wants to know how to shudder, he should visit this Haunted Castle.

Richthofen goes off to war like thousands of other men. As fighter pilots, they become cult heroes for the soldiers on the battlefields. Marked by sportsmanlike conduct, technical exactitude and knightly propriety, they have their own code of honour. Before long he begins to understand that his hero status is deceptive. His love for Kate, a nurse, opens his eyes to the brutality of war.

A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.

Ingo Hasselbach, whose parents were Communist Party members in East Germany during his childhood, has lived at both ends of the political seesaw. The question of how people reach a change of heart is a profound one; Hasselbach describes the external forces that led to his founding Germany's first neo-Nazi political party and the internal ones that led him away from it five years later.

In 1932, the nation was shocked when the 14-month-old son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped, held for ransom, and murdered. Two years later, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested, convicted, and executed. This film dramatizes the investigation against Hauptmann, the trial, and the execution, painting a picture of a corrupt police force under pressure to finger a killer framing an innocent man by manufacturing evidence, paying-off and blackmailing witnesses, and covering up exculpatory evidence.