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Hape Kerkeling – Total Normal 2024 star_border 8
To mark the 60th birthday of the multi-talented comedian, singer and author Hape Kerkeling, the two documentary filmmakers André Schäfer and Eric Friedler have created a quiet, thoughtful and entertaining portrait of this often anarchic humorist. The film tells of his rapid rise as a teenager, his time and the blows of fate during the AIDS epidemic, the controversial forced outing, his confident exit from the show business and his new beginning. The film is a sensitive insight into the family history and a fast-paced journey through the career stages of a formative figure in German TV entertainment.

Milk Teeth 2024
Skalde lives in a small rural community, far from a world that may no longer exist. She is an interloper in her own home, having been born to an ‘outsider’ mother and therefore marked by a social stigma she cannot easily erase. Displaying a loyalty to the codes of the community, she has earned the respect of the village elder. However, when she encounters a mysterious girl in the local woods, Skalde risks everything by befriending her, eventually giving the girl a home.

Jamel - Lauter Widerstand 2024
The small village of Jamel in the northwest of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is considered a right-wing extremist stronghold. In the past, neo-Nazis have deliberately moved here. Using right-wing slogans and symbols, they openly claim dominance over the village. In the middle of it all: the artist couple Birgit and Horst Lohmeyer. In search of a rural idyll, the Lohmeyers moved to the village in 2004, underestimating the situation there, where they encountered right-wing extremist thinking and rejection, even threats. Instead of allowing themselves to be driven away, they make a statement against it every year with the "Jamel Rocks the Forester" music festival. After their barn was set on fire, they and their festival received prominent support from the German music scene. The documentary shows that the conditions in the village are not an isolated case and that folkish landgrabs by right-wing extremists are a widespread problem, but also how music can help fight for democracy.

Turning Point Up Close - A Year with Soldiers 2024
The film focuses on three male and one female soldier. They represent the challenges that the German army is currently facing: the Bundeswehr has too few personnel, too little equipment and for many years was not prepared for the type of war that it must now prepare for in the future. The film reflects the dramatic change from the perspective of those who have to shoulder the task of "national and alliance defense" in a very concrete and personal way in their everyday lives, at their location, in their unit.

Dreißig Jahre an der Peitsche 2024
A portrait of Rosa von Praunheim's neighbor, who worked for decades as a professional dominatrix in Berlin's Wilmersdorf district. While the real Lady MacLaine reflects authentically and wittily on her life and work, her life is retold in dramatized scenes.

Die Nacht erwacht! Über Leben im Wald 2024
A forest is not only the realm of trees, but also a world of animals. When it gets dark in the forest, we humans leave this place, we are not made for darkness. This is different with nocturnal forest inhabitants: they communicate with sounds, orient themselves with ultrasound and their often looking eyes are perfect to find their way in the jungle of trees.

7. Oktober – Krieg ohne Ende? 2024
Where is the Middle East one year after Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel? Is there a prospect of peace? What could this solution look like? Or is the war spreading? These big questions are in the background of the two personal stories in this documentary. Israeli Gil Dickmann is fighting for the release of his cousin Carmel. She was abducted as a hostage in the Gaza Strip during the Palestinian terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Between fear, frustration and hope, Gil has become one of the spokespeople for the hostage families, who are putting pressure on the Israeli government of Prime Minister Netanyahu with numerous protests and actions. In the Gaza Strip, too, people are desperately hoping for such an agreement that could end the war and the deaths. 14-year-old Usaama lost 19 family members in an Israeli attack. He himself survived with serious injuries, but even after several operations he cannot walk.

John Cranko 2024 star_border 9
The gifted, charismatic artist John Cranko moves to the Swabian province from London, where he is attacked for his homosexuality, and after many crises becomes the great sensation as the new pop star of the arts: the Stuttgart Ballet Miracle.

Beyond the Blue Border 2024
GDR, August 1989: Hanna and Andreas became a target of the secret police and had to give up their plans for their future studies and desired professions. Instead, they face arbitrariness, mistrust and reprisals. Their only chance for a self-determined life lies in fleeing across the Baltic Sea. Fifty kilometres of water separate them from freedom - and only a thin connecting rope around their wrists saves them from absolute loneliness.

Raw Materials 2024
A drama centered around a German construction manager who works with undocumented workers and an Albanian girl searching for her missing father.

Israel and Gaza: Into the Abyss 2024 star_border 9
This deeply affecting documentary follows a small number of Israelis and Gazans through the most dramatic and tragic year of their lives. Using personal and previously unseen footage, it tells the story of the war in Gaza and the October 7 attacks through deeply emotional stories from both sides of the conflict. In Gaza, the film follows three individuals from reaction to the October 7th attacks to the start of the bombing by the Israeli military and to the loss of family members that all three suffer. In Israel, we witness footage of the Israeli characters, as they and their family members are attacked by Hamas on October 7th and then follow their stories through the year.

The Wolves Always Come at Night 2024 star_border 8
Davaa and Zaya are a young nomadic couple in the vast Bayanhongor region of Mongolia who are in the throes of animal birthing season when a seismic event suddenly changes their lives. They are forced to migrate afar but are haunted by their past lives.

From Darkness to Light 2024 star_border 6
Explores Jerry Lewis' unreleased 1972 film "The Day the Clown Cried," its mysterious disappearance, and the search for footage. Includes interviews with Lewis' associates and previously unseen production content.

Artensterben an Deutschlands Flüssen – Wenn der Mensch in die Natur eingreift 2024

Goebbels and the Führer 2024 star_border 6.9
As Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels creates films and pictures used to prepare the Germans for Total War and the Holocaust. When the war is lost, he conceives his last staging, the most radical propaganda act still possible to him.

Who Is Without Fault 2024 star_border 5.3
After a night of drinking, Paul wakes up with a severe hangover and can’t remember what happened. His T-shirt is covered in blood, and a body has been found — that of his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. Did Paul kill him in a drunken stupor? Inspector Anita Wild investigates, even though she’d rather avoid the village where she grew up.

Where We Come From 2024 star_border 4.6
Summer 1994: Christian grows up under the violent hand of his father. When his mother dies, his aunt Juli fights to ensure that Christian can attend secondary school. In the process, he gets caught in the middle.

Eternal You 2024 star_border 6.2
Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product.

War and Justice 2024
War and Justice is the first and only true-life documentary about the International Criminal Court (ICC), thanks to unprecedented access to Ben Ferencz, Luis Moreno Ocampo (ICC’s first prosecutor), and Karim Khan (its current prosecutor). Film directors Marcus Vetter and Michele Gentile follow Ocampo around the world as he enlists the support of Academy Award-winning Angelina Jolie and as they join Ferencz in the uphill battle against wars in the Congo, Libya, Palestine, and Ukraine.

24 h D-Day 2024
D-Day marks the starting point for the liberation of Western Europe from the grip of the Nazi yoke. On June 6th, 1944, Allied soldiers attack German positions at no less than five sectors of the beach in Normandy. The assault takes place from the sea and is considered the largest amphibious landing operation in history. This event now sees its 80th anniversary. But so close, so authentic, this battle has never been shown before. American and British cameramen are at the scene in landing boats, under fire at the beaches, and during the rescue of wounded soldiers. Their original footage, shoot in black-and-white, was extensively restored and colourized for this documentary. The historically unique footage appear in motion picture quality. The war gets colour. And thereby a different impact. We look directly in the faces of those, Americans, Canadians, Britons, and Germans, who are often not older than 20. In “24h D-Day”, they tell about their D-Day, the day they never can forget.

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Video Nasty new_releases Release: 01-08-2025
Three mostly normal, slightly weird teens go on an epic quest for a cult VHS collection. But on the way, they somehow get mixed up in a murder.

A Divided World: 1939-1962 2024
From the Second World War to the 1960s, when the world was divided into East and West, this series traces the lives of six real people, including the German engineer Wernher von Braun, who rose from Nazi ranks to eventually work for NASA, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and the future Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir.

Mao 2024 star_border 8
The People’s Republic of China now plays a central role in global politics, economics and diplomacy – more than it ever has before. Its president, Xi Jinping openly espouses the model forged by former Chairman, Mao Zedong, known as the Great Helmsman. But what do we really know about Mao? And how does his legacy relate to Xi’s ‘China Dream’? This 3-part documentary series explores Mao Zedong, his beliefs and his methods. It shows how these have shaped Xi’s philosophy and the reality of today’s China. Mao had set China on the road to true sovereignty, freeing it from the humiliation of foreign domination. Xi is now completing that journey towards the strong Middle Kingdom and cultural predominance that Mao aimed for – while sweeping under the carpet the unthinkable victims and costs of Mao’s rule. The story arc of Mao’s astonishing biography provides varied and profound insights into the ideals, strategies and ambitions of today’s People’s Republic and its position in the next decade.

Kafka 2024 star_border 7.3
The story of Franz Kafka's life from different perspectives. Presenting his difficult relationship with his domineering father Hermann, his deep friendship with Max Brod and his various love affairs.

Die Unfallklinik 2023

Berlin Bad Trip 2023 star_border 8
Jannik and Tai, mobbed by their classmates, are two 17-year-old students who one day find their school principal drunk as a skunk on the street and lock him up in his own apartment. Tai enjoys playing “God” and forces the teacher to perform a soul striptease. A hell trip for Jannik, who doesn’t know if Tai will return his tender infatuation. An aﬀectionate and quirky coming of age story full of surprises.

Verbrannte Sterne 2023

SWR Wissen 2023

Die Queen - Schicksalsjahre einer Königin 2022

L’Autriche, la nature en mouvement 2022 star_border 10

Vom Mont Blanc ans Mittelmeer 2022

Durst - Wenn unser Wasser verschwindet 2022

Axel Wagner & Die Klimakrise 2022

Nazi Hunters 2022 star_border 2.5
Shortly after the end of the Second World War: In 1945 and 1946, the men of the British "War Crimes Investigation Unit" drove through northern Germany on the hunt for Nazi criminals. One of them is Captain Anton Walter Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Anton Walter Freud fled to London with his family from the Nazis in 1938. Now an intelligence officer, he's back to track down killers on Allied wanted lists: hitmen in pinstripes, brutal SS henchmen, and ruthless doctors who conducted medical experiments even on children. The soldiers who witnessed the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp months earlier are not squeamish about it. 24-year-old Freud is a free spirit known for his unorthodox methods. He knows how to make war criminals talk. So he comes across a crime that has hardly been known before, the murder of 20 children in Hamburg in the last days of the war.

TickTack – Zeitreise mit Lisa & Lena 2022 star_border 10

Wild Republic 2021 star_border 5.4
In the midst of the impassable landscape at the foot of the Alps, a young group of serious offenders is undergoing an experiential educational program intended to rehabilitate them. All of a sudden, a member of the program dies a violent death. Nobody knows exactly what happened, and the youths face a difficult decision. Should they wait for the authorities to recover the body and investigate the crime? Or, escape and take their fate into their own hands? The group doesn't have much in common with each other, though one thing unites them; all of them have had really bad experiences with the authorities and don‘t expect to be treated fairly. Since they don't know who the perpetrator is, they only have one option: to run. Up the mountains, up the highest peaks of the Alps. It seems hopeless until they stumble onto a complex cave system where they can find shelter from wind, weather, and their pursuers.

Wettstreit der Kathedralen 2020 star_border 8

Night patrol 2020 star_border 8
Every night, the Mainz police teams go out into the unknown - to help, calm down, de-escalate, make arrests or take a close look at crimes and deaths. They often expect unusual missions. The SWR documentary series provides an exclusive and unadulterated insight into the demanding work of the Mainz police. It shows the police officers behind the uniform.

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