New Releases

  • REMARKABLE WOMEN – PAINTERS FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO CLASSICISM

    The film portrays four remarkable European female artists from the Renaissance to Classicism, who carved unusual careers in very different social settings: star of the Renaissance, Sofonisba Anguissola, self-made Baroque artist, Judith Leyster, Angelica Kauffmann, a trailblazer at the time of Goethe, and Marie-Guillemine Benoist, a portraitist during the French Revolution.

  • HEAT WAVES

    Heatwaves are increasing in frequency, duration and intensity. How can we protect ourselves against extreme heat in the future? What management strategies are there? Cities, in particular, face enormous challenges. This film examines scientific answers and visits “hotspots” in Europe.

  • THE SECRET OF PREHISTORIC MOTHERS

    What was motherhood like in prehistoric times? Recent archaeological findings prove that the cooperative support of mothers within a community became a successful reproductive strategy. This scientific film also offers insights into evolutionary biology by examining the communal way young white-tufted marmosets are reared.

  • WHEN WAR CAME TO OUR NEWSROOM

    Mass graves in Mariupol, child abductions to Russia, brutal mercenary troops – journalists from the Ukrainian investigative news project “Schemes” run by Radio Free Europe have spent two years reporting on the war in their country and experiencing it firsthand every day. This series demonstrates the critical role played by their work.

  • ATIRKÜL IN THE LAND OF REAL MEN

    On the vast plains of Kyrgyzstan, men have been practising the team sport of buzkashi, for centuries. The aim of the game is to steal the trophy of a dead goat from the rival team of riders while staying on horseback. Into this tough masculine world enters Atirkül, a woman with an enterprising spirit. Her ambition is to find local men to form her own team.

  • RUSSIA VS LAWYERS

    Civil society and the law system in Russia are under severe pressure from the state. Human rights lawyers have become the last frontier between state violence and society. Mikhail Benyash and a network of like-minded lawyers defend those who dare to speak up. They fight for justice in an increasingly suffocating dictatorship.

  • KANT – THE EXPERIMENT OF FREEDOM

    Immanuel Kant was already an important philosopher during his lifetime. Three hundred years after his birth, the film shows for the first time Kant’s close connection to his native Königs-berg, a place he never left. Everything he knew came from books or everyday observations. Using sophisticated animation techniques, the film takes us back to 18th-century Königsberg between Europe and the Russian Empire.

  • POL POT DANCING

    Chea Samy, a celebrated dancer at the Cambodian Royal Palace, raises a boy as her own at her home on the palace grounds. Years later, as a forced labourer under the Khmer Rouge, she realises her foster son is Pol Pot. The film tells the almost unknown story of the history and reign of Pol Pot and its connection to classical Cambodian dance.

  • CODE OF FEAR

    In 2013, the young journalist Eric Lembembe was tortured and beaten to death in Cameroon. He fought for the recognition of the rights of homosexuals. Shocked by the brutal murder, the film-maker returns to his home country. While he examines his own homophobic upbringing, the film reveals that Lembembe’s murder as no isolated case.

  • JOHNNY & ME – A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME WITH JOHN HEARTFIELD

    Graphic artist Stefanie is in the middle of a creativity crisis. In a museum, she is captivated by the satirical photomontages of the world-famous artist and Nazi opponent John Heartfield. Miraculously, she finds herself in his studio. She embarks on an adventurous journey through Heartfield’s extraordinary life 100 years ago.

  • LONELY OAKS

    Hambach Forest in Germany was supposed to be cleared to expand an open-cast lignite mine. In 2018, during a large-scale police operation to evict activists occupying the forest, film student Steffen Meyn was killed in a tragic accident. Based on his film footage, we chronicle Steffen’s journey and follow him into the activists’ world.

  • JEW SUESS 2.0

    Anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, driven to new extremes by the COVID crisis. This film documents the visual roots of this new anti-Semitism, taking a historical look at the visual propaganda of the Nazis.