Commissioned to make a working-class family drama for public television, up-and-coming director Rainer Werner Fassbinder took the assignment and ran, dodging expectations by depicting social realities in West Germany from a critical—yet far from cynical—perspective. Over the course of five episodes, the sprawling story tracks the everyday triumphs and travails of the young toolmaker Jochen and many of the people populating his world, including the woman he loves, his eccentric family, and his fellow workers, with whom he bands together to improve conditions on the factory floor.
Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.
Stars, pop culture and the attitude to life between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 are shown in this documentary on the 30th anniversary of the former music channel VIVA, which first shaped the zeitgeist - and was then overrun by it.
From the 1950s to the present day, from Los Angeles to San Francisco via Berkeley University or Silicon Valley, this three-part documentary series unfolds the recent history of California, which is revolutionizing the world by its way of life and its incredible capacity for innovation.
In recent years, resentments and hatred towards Jews have become increasingly aggressive, louder and more brutal. What is at the roots of this development? Statistics show an extreme rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Germany but also worldwide. Berlin, for example, has become the city with the highest number of such attacks in Europe. Whether it’s from the left or the right, among Muslims or simply in normal everyday life - Jews and Jewish institutions are increasingly being threatened and violently assaulted in this country. In this series by Richard C. Schneider, experts and scientists, as well as those affected, attempt to explain the intentional or unintentional mechanisms of anti-Jewish hostility on the basis of historical, social and ideological developments.