30 Oct 1992
The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.
11 Feb 2008
The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.
13 Feb 2007
A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.
10 Mar 1970
Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.
22 May 2019
25 years after Erich Honecker's death, his personal secretary in Chile gives MDR an exclusive insight into the family's private archive. The material provides new background information on the dramatic escape story of the once most powerful man in the GDR, his journey to Chile and the dispute over Honecker's mortal remains.
02 Jan 1991
Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.
06 Jul 2014
Documentary looking at a century of cycling. Commissioned to mark the arrival of the 2014 Tour de France in Yorkshire, the film makes full use of stunning British Film Institute footage to transport the audience on a journey from the invention of the modern bike, through the rise of recreational cycling, to gruelling competitive races. Award-winning director Daisy Asquith artfully combines the richly-diverse archive with a hypnotic soundtrack from cult composer Bill Nelson in a joyful, absorbing watch for both cycling and archive fans.
19 Jun 2008
The film accompanies Jenny Gröllmann, a German actress, during the last two years of her life.
01 Jun 2022
The film Together we cycle investigates the critical events that has led to the revival of the Dutch cycling culture. For most people, cycling in the Netherlands, seems a natural phenomenon. However, until the 1970s the development of mobility in the Netherlands followed trents across the globe. The bicycle had had its day, and the future belonged to the car. The only thing that had to be done was to adapt cities to the influx of cars. Then Dutch society took a different turn. Against all odds people kept on cycling. The question why this happened in the Netherlands, has not an easy answer. There are many factors, events and circumstances that worked together, both socially and policy-wise. In Together we cycle, key players tell the story of the bumpy road which led to the current state. Where cycling is an obvious choice for most citizens.
03 Sep 2010
For fixed-gear cyclists, Los Angeles is a city that has it all. From the neon glow of Hollywood to the sun-drenched boardwalk of Venice Beach, fixed-gear has evolved into a vibrant street culture that is uniquely L.A. From director David Rowe (Fast Friday) comes a new documentary feature that explores a side of L.A. few outsiders have seen. From races through rush-hour traffic to midnight loft parties, To Live & Ride in L.A. is a fast paced-trip through the busy streets and back-alleys of one of the world's largest cities. To Live & Ride in L.A. features talented local riders tearing up the streets with first-time visitor Keo Curry (Fast Friday, Macaframa) - one of the living legends of the sport. Bike to hidden spots off the map, race a midnight alley-cat, keep pace with the riders from Wolfpack, and hang with the local crews, graffiti artists and other L.A. personalities burning up the fixed-gear scene.
19 Jan 2024
In the heart of Yogyakarta, a tall bike enthusiast takes a stand against the city's lacklustre cycling infrastructure in the city with the "Bicycle Friendly City" label.
08 Oct 2020
For Los Angeles natives living in the early 1900s, bicycles and streetcars shared the road as our primary modes of transportation. But the arrival of the freeway effectively wiped them out. Today, a collective of cycling communities fight for protected bike lanes and road safety, determined to bring a new era of mobility justice to the city.
02 Oct 2019
No overview found
15 Aug 2012
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.
02 Apr 2012
Erich Honecker ruled the GDR for 18 years. His fall in 1989 heralded the downfall of the state that had called itself "the better Germany" for 40 years. Nazi victim and autocrat, bourgeois and power-conscious: Honecker was an ideological hardliner who coordinated the construction of the Wall in 1961 and whose regime was known as an unjust state for Wall deaths, firing orders, the Stasi and forced adoptions. In the wake of the fall of communism, the former model socialist fell into homelessness and found himself on the run in his own country. Suffering from cancer, he managed to evade responsibility before a court by emigrating to Chile, where he died in 1994. This gripping documentary portrays the rise and fall of this contradictory German politician with an impressive array of top-class international and national contemporary witnesses. Erich Honecker would have been 100 years old on August 25, 2012.
02 Oct 2020
In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.
15 May 2013
Bikes for Africa is an entertaining, insightful and moving documentary following the life adventures of Hap Cameron and Mandy Todd, and their attempt to help implement a self sustainable bike workshop in rural Namibia with a container load secondhand donated bikes from Melbourne. The film investigates how a bicycle can fundamentally change the lives of rural Africans, and brings to focus the great works of two-wheeled charities Bicycles for Humanity and the Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia.
08 Sep 2013
In 2009, Alex Gibney was hired to make a film about Lance Armstrong’s comeback to cycling. The project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re-opened after Armstrong’s confession. The Armstrong Lie picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting, insider's view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of sports. As Lance Armstrong says himself, “I didn’t live a lot of lies, but I lived one big one.”
03 Feb 1989
A locomotive journey traversing the North to the South of the German Democratic Republic on the eve of its dissolution. Labourers, punks, mothers, intellectuals, young and old are implored to reflect on their life choices, the sacrifices they've made, and their place in the world. Despite everything, hope persists.
01 Dec 1963
This bicycle-safety film shows children what can happen when bicycles are driven carelessly and recklessly.