It’s the journey of her life: musician Petra travels all the way from Berlin to eastern Iran, via Anatolia, in search of the origins of her favorite string instrument: the. It’s the journey of her life: Petra Nachtmanova travels to both the end of the world and the centre of her heart. The Berlin musician heads off in search of the origins of a string instrument tangled in myths, which found its way to her in the streets of Berlin […]
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What happens within our system of values when economic interests and people’s lives become intertwined through tragedy? Why is the life of a firefighter who died in the Twin Towers on September 11 worth on average a million dollars less than that of a stockbroker who lost his life in the same disaster? How much money should BP pay the fishermen on the Gulf of Mexico who are fighting for their livelihoods after the largest oil spill in history? Questions […]
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Edward II ruled England in the early 14th century. He was the first king since the Norman Conquest of 1066 to be deposed. A portrait of a polarizing king and his unprecedented downfall. As historians and many of his contemporaries would agree, Edward II, who ruled England at the start of the 14th century, was not a good king. But it has to be said, they weren’t easy times either: from his father, Edward I, he inherited a bloody conflict […]
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Our world is defined by the failure of communism, the rise of market economics, and by the power of politicised religion. All of these forces came together in the dramatic year of 1979. The Islamic revolution in Iran under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, Pope John Paul II’s visit to Poland, the opening of China under Deng Xiaoping, Great Britain’s neoliberal shift under Margaret Thatcher and the invasion of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan – these are just some of […]
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It’s impossible to stop and still difficult to forecast avalanches. We spend a winter season following scientists, snow profilers and trainers as they go about their work in the Alps. It doesn’t matter whether they’re snowshoeing or skiing, up to 100 people are killed by avalanches in Alpine countries every year. Stopping the rolling masses of snow is impossible and it’s still difficult, although not impossible, to forecast avalanches. At the world’s largest centre for avalanche research − the Institute […]
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On King George Island, the gateway to Antarctica, five different nations operate research stations located in the most extraordinary of environments. Only together can researchers survive such hostile conditions. King George Island on the edge of the coldest, loneliest continent on Earth. The island is the gateway to Antarctica. Located at its southwestern tip in an extraordinary landscape of rock and ice are research stations operated by five different nations: Chile, Russia, Uruguay, South Korea and China. Conflicting political views, […]
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Othmar Ammann, a Swiss-American structural engineer, designed more than half of the eleven bridges that connect New York City to the rest of the United States. We tell his adventure-filled story. The engineer Othmar Ammann left Switzerland in 1904 to redefine the art of bridge-building in America. He designed more than half of the eleven bridges that connect New York City to the rest of the United States. His constructions changed the face of New York forever. Beyond the life […]
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Linz in Austria was to become the cultural capital of the Nazis. Hitler spent years planning to transform the provincial town into a model city with the “Führermuseum” at its centre. An investigation into the city’s past. Linz, the rather sleepy city on the river Danube, was the city of Hitler’s youth, the city of his dreams. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, he planned to transform the provincial town into a “national work of art”. He wanted […]
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On her quest to find out what motherhood means for herself, director Antonia Hungerland encounters all kinds of people, none of whom seem to correspond to our traditional notion of a mother. What is a ‘real mother? Motherhood is the most natural thing in the world. Or so it’s said. Yet the demands on women with children have rarely been as challenging and contradictory as they are in the Western world today. Hopes of happiness are often followed by discrimination, […]
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Of Polynesia’s once sacred sites, the stone temples or marae, all that is left today are ruins. We explore their secrets and significance for Polynesian culture. Polynesians once lived in harmony with the elements and the afterworld. Stones had a special religious significance in Polynesian culture. They were sculpted into representations of ancestral spirits to invoke protection, they were guardians of territories, windows to heaven and the stars. And they were used to build temples, or marae. Today, around 250 […]
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Once celebrated as a life saver, penicillin today is alarming researchers all over the world. A fascinating film about the history and current status of antibiotics. Ninety years ago, in the summer of 1928, Scottish doctor Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by accident. It took another two decades and a world war for him and others to succeed in producing the antibiotic in such large quantities that the epidemics of that time – typhus, syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis – could be […]
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Five veterans talk about their experiences of war and the process of adjusting to civilian life back home. We follow five young veterans from Pittsburgh who served in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. Joe, Torrie, Mike, James and Justin talk about their experiences of war and the process of adjusting to civilian life back home. Veterans make up only 2% of the US population, but they bear the physical and psychological burdens of all recent wars – a decade of […]
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Rising seas will be one of the biggest challenges we face in the next few centuries. Island states will disappear, coastlines will shift. On the basis of scientists’ predictions, billions of dollars are being invested in coastal protection measures. But not everything can be protected. The polar ice caps are melting and water is on its way. If all the ice in Antarctica and Greenland melted, the seal level would rise by over 66 metres. Rising sea levels will be […]
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Julia is born in a Russian prison. The film follows the girl’s development from the first year of her life until after she turns six. Three women take it in turns to look after her. They all want the best for Julia, but they don’t always agree on what that actually means… Anna’s daughter Julia is born in a Russian prison. Anna is allowed to keep her daughter until she turns three, then she has to give up the […]
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In Iran, men can legally abuse, coerce, humiliate, rule over and speak on behalf of women. A group of Iranian women’s rights activists risk their lives in order to draw attention to the systematic violence to which women are exposed in their country. A group of women’s rights activists in Iran put their lives at risk in order to draw attention to the issue of domestic violence in their country. This author-driven documentary starts with the personal story of Mina, the […]
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It’s impossible to stop and still difficult to forecast avalanches. We spend a winter season following scientists, snow profilers and trainers as they go about their work in the Alps. It doesn’t matter whether they’re snowshoeing or skiing, up to 100 people are killed by avalanches in Alpine countries every year. Stopping the rolling masses of snow is impossible and it’s still difficult, although not impossible, to forecast avalanches. At the world’s largest centre for avalanche research − the Institute […]
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In 2004, German citizen Khaled El-Masri was kidnapped and detained by the CIA. The story of an innocent man who fell victim to geopolitical power interests. In 2004, while on a bus trip close to the Macedonian border, the German citizen Khaled El-Masri disappeared. He was kidnapped by the CIA and taken to a secret prison near Kabul as part of an “extraordinary rendition”. Five months later, he was released in a forest in Albania. His case was the […]
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Until recently, an elephant was killed in Africa every 15 minutes. Today, nature protection has risen to defend itself. Thanks to Western funding, military training, and cutting-edge high tech, rangers are cracking down on poachers. However, this aggressive militarisation has a dark side. An alarming view behind the scenes of Africa’s armed conservation efforts that Western aid has actively propelled. Today, many African national parks seem to finally have achieved, what nature conservationists around the world have been demanding for […]
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Layla and Ramsis, German- Palestinian siblings living in Germany, face a family tragedy far away in the besieged Gaza Strip. In the summer of 2014, Ibrahim, his wife and their five children are killed when their building is hit by an Israeli missile during an attack on Gaza. Ibrahim also had two children from a previous marriage: Layla (24) and Ramsis (26), who were born and raised in Germany. Layla and Ramsis’ grief at the death of their father and […]
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War photographer Gervasio Sánchez portrayed the post- war generation in Sarajevo. Now and 25 years ago. Twenty-five years ago, after the siege of Sarajevo, war photographer Gervasio Sánchez moved to the city and took photos of children on the war-ravaged streets. Since then, he has returned to Sarajevo every year and stayed in contact with some of his former subjects. How are the “children” now? One emblematic shot of four girls behind a shattered windshield has continued to haunt him […]
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Nineteen-year-old Ekhlas is a survivor of IS captivity who campaigns internationally for recognition of the Yazidi genocide. In 2014, the “Islamic State” launched a genocide against the Yazidi people in Iraq. Ekhlas was 14 years old at the time and the youngest sister in a family of seven siblings. Her father was killed before her very eyes and Ekhlas herself was captured by IS fighters. She tried to take her life three times, but after six months managed to escape […]
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The internet giant Wikipedia is about to turn 20. We take a look at its background and the future of the online encyclopaedia. In 2021, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia celebrates its 20th anniversary. With its philosophy of “knowledge by all, for all”, Wikipedia has pushed aside all printed encyclopaedias. In total there are about 50 million articles in almost 300 languages. Anybody can contribute. But little is known about the individual creators of this vast pool of knowledge who feed […]
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What happens within our system of values when economic interests and people’s lives become intertwined through tragedy? Why is the life of a firefighter who died in the Twin Towers on September 11 worth on average a million dollars less than that of a stockbroker who lost his life in the same disaster? How much money should BP pay the fishermen on the Gulf of Mexico who are fighting for their livelihoods after the largest oil spill in history? Questions […]
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He was a patron of science and a reformer on the one hand, a brutal power-seeker on the other. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, king and Holy Roman Emperor from 1212 to 1250, was a man full of contradictions. He was a patron of science, a reformer, and might even be called the first modern ruler. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1212 to 1250, was an exceptional figure on the Roman-German imperial throne. Born and […]
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