The documentary tells the story of the reunification from the perspective of six teenagers from East Germany.
Social & External
13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.
Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.
A retrospective look at the youth cultures born in the German Democratic Republic. A celebration of the lust for life, a contemporary trip into the world of skate, a tale on three heroes and their boards, from their childhood in the seventies, through their teenage rebellion in the eighties and the summer of 1989, when their life changed forever, to 2011.
Docudrama about life, career and breakdown of Erich Mielke, the former Security chief of East Germany.
Marcel Ophüls interviews various important Eastern European figures for their thoughts on the reunification of Germany and the fall of Communism.
Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.
In 1986, Ross McElwee (Sherman's March) and Marilyn Levine were making a film about the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall, when the imposing structure was still very much intact as the world’s most visible symbol of hardline Communism and Cold War lore. They thought they were making a documentary on the community of tourists, soldiers, and West Berliners who lived in the seemingly eternal presence of the graffiti emblazoned eyesore. But in 1989, as the original film neared completion, the Wall came down, and McElwee and Levine returned to Berlin, this time to capture the radically different atmosphere of the reunified city.
This film undertakes a journey into the amazing parallel universe of East Berlin’s fashion designers and experts in the art of survival. For, in the midst of the constraints of life in the GDR, there existed a fantasy world where it was possible to dance to another tune, be individual and even provocative. The most important characteristic of this bohemian scene was one’s per- sonal style. But this certainly wasn’t something that could be bought off the peg in the GDR. In this parallel universe it was up to you to create your own individual image – with your own hands. This film tells the story of the desires, the passion and the dreams that were tried and tested, lived and performed in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.
Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.
Volker Koepp documents life in the Dorotheenstadt in Berlin-Mitte, which was called "Feuerland" in the 19th century.
Documentary that explore the origins and demise of the notorious Berlin Wall, the structure's affect on ordinary German lives and the peaceful end to the Cold War. Full of detailed information, this historical PBS documentary explains the stark differences between East and West Germany and their process of reunification.
Short documentary about artist Keith Haring, detailing his involvement in the New York City graffiti subculture, his opening of the Pop Shop, and the social commentary present in his paintings and drawings.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of documents were hastily shredded by the dreaded GDR political police. 16,000 bags filled with six million pieces of paper were found. Thanks to the meticulous work of technology, the destinies of men and women who had been spied on and recorded without their knowledge could be reconstructed.
For 50 years, Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War. The city at the heart of the intelligence war between the US and the Soviet bloc. Thousands of KGB or CIA, agents observed each other, cogs in the biggest information war in history.
Rock and roll's part in bringing down the Berlin Wall and smashing the Iron Curtain is told from the perspective of rockers who played at the time, on both sides of the Wall, and from survivors of the communist regimes who recall the lifeline that rock music provided them.
In the early summer of 1990, the Treuhandanstalt was founded to privatize the "state-owned" companies of the GDR. In the four years that followed, around 4,000 of these companies were closed and around two and a half million jobs were lost. Until its closure at the end of 1994, the Treuhandanstalt incured debts totaling 256 billion marks - the equivalent of around 150 million marks every day. The Treuhand also allowed itself to be cheated out of many billions of marks. This scandal was never fully investigated. Most of the perpetrators went unpunished or were not even charged.
A long-term observation of the forgotten former “Gestapo grounds” in Berlin 1986-2013.
A documentary and film essay about the artist scene in East Berlin during the 1950s.
A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.
In the led-up to the 1989 WWE Survivor Series, top WWE Superstars strive to Survive!
Much like the infamous match between Bret Hart and Tom Magee, a piece of PROGRESS history has recently been uncovered. The former Progress announcer, Jimmy Barnett, has been sharing his memories of a show from May 26th, 1988. Last year he was kind enough to offer his recollections of a very early PROGRESS from way back in May of 1978 (PROGRESS even found the footage in their vault), and it's a rare treat to get details of another historical show from a man on the inside.
This movie shows the simplest difference between Europe and former Soviet Union. It is the eponymous 89 mm - Russian train tracks are 89 mm wider than tracks in European countries. And because of this fact, it is not easy to go through the Soviet border by train in Brest as the passengers in the film do.
An atmospheric venture into slow cinema, following Rose, a down and out gay prostitute, trapped in the minutiae of his quiet and isolated life.
Ends the season and Victoria, widow, mature and owns the beachside motel, does not want to spend another winter alone. To avoid it, buy the company of Paul to continue working for her. Paul agrees, provided remain free and enjoy other women. Days after reaching the motel Gloria, a beautiful biologist who claims to be working on a book and, to the surprise of Paul, seems to know everything about Victoria and her past.
A five-man US fireteam dig in at the Bon Song Valley (represented by the Bavarian forest) to await the end of the Easter truce with the Vietnamese. A Vietnamese girl passes by and the team rape and kill her. One refuses to take part and escapes to report the incident, but it is dismissed by his superior.
Live performance from the influential post-punk band, one of the pioneers of industrial and goth music, fronted by the eccentric Jaz Coleman.
This V-Cinema release takes place between Missions 44 & 45. While preparing to celebrate New Year's, the Go-Busters are all killed by a monster named Azazel. Finding himself (and J) before God in Heaven, Nick uses his status as the one millionth person to die in 2012 to grant his wish that Messiah never existed. He awakens to find a changed world, where the Busters are now known as the Dobutsu Sentai Go-Busters.
The militia is looking for a dangerous repeat offender, Sobol, also known as "Artist," who's known to be linked to a fugitive from a penal colony and is preparing to attack a cash conveyor.
Secrets, fate, reality, superstition. How will the visitors cope with these things in one cruise hotel?
Architect Hal Norton and wife Meg invite his widowed mother Louisa to move in with them, only to discover the sweet elderly lady is romantically involved with what seems to be every old coot in town.
After winning big at the races, Torajiro Kuruma wants to take his aunt and uncle on a trip to Hawaii to partly pay the great filial debt he feels he owes them, but the plan hits a snag. Also, a pretty kindergarten teacher rents a room at Toraya.
Wayland returns home after being badly injured in the war in Afghanistan, the legacy of his injuries are epileptic seizures. To compound his sense of isolation his daughter has vanished without a trace. He is determined to find her. His investigation uncovers a dark, sinister world where nothing is quite what it seems. His quest becomes not only about finding her but also about discovering who and what he has become. Wayland is looking for something he left behind in the killing fields of Helmand Provence, his humanity and his soul. Waylands Song is an adaptation of the classic Northern European parable. Wayland is crippled by his masters so he can never take flight and escape for which he takes a bloody and violent revenge.
Ten years before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, a Japanese Go master and his Chinese rival meet in China to play a game of Go (loosely described as an Asian version of chess). It soon becomes evident that the Chinese master's son is the most talented player that the Japanese master has ever encountered, and he convinces the boy's father to let him bring the child back to Japan to train him as a professional Go player. Years pass, and as the young Chinese master grows to maturity in Japan, the Japanese invasion of China forces him to choose between his triumphant career and his loyalty to his native country. His decision is complicated by his marriage to the daughter of the Japanese master, with whom he has produced a child. His choice will profoundly alter the lives of two families. Their saga serves as a reflection of the tragic relations between their two great countries, and the possibility of reconciliation and healing.
