Berliner Stadtbahnbilder

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

September 1927 •German

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

SubBerlin - Underground United

February 2008 •German

The original Tresor was in many ways the quintessential Berlin club: located in an unrenovated vault beneath a bombed out department store, it opened its doors amidst the general confusion and ecstasy that swept across the city when the wall fell. Its low ceilings, industrial decor and generally unhinged atmosphere created an unprecedented platform not only for techno in Berlin, but also for the scene taking shape across the Atlantic in Detroit.

Cavalcade of San Francisco

September 1940 •English

This Traveltalk series short celebrates San Francisco, past and present.

Queens Don’t Cry

February 2002 •German

Bosom buddies BeV StroganoV, Ovo Maltine, Ichgola Androgyn and Tima die Göttliche are four Berlin drag queens who met in the mid 1980s. These four queens became Germany’s most popular drag performers and have been busy fertilizing the German cultural scene. Besides being performers, they are also political activists – in AIDS awareness, anti-gay violence, the sex workers movement and the struggle against the extreme right and racism. The film tells their story.

Prinzessinnenbad

May 2007 •German

A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.

Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony

February 2008 •German

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

Ich will da sein - Jenny Gröllmann

June 2008 •German

The film accompanies Jenny Gröllmann, a German actress, during the last two years of her life.

Theater Work - The Berliner Ensemble at 25

May 1975 •German

A review of 25 years of theatre work by the Berliner Ensemble, dedicated mostly to plays by Bertolt Brecht. Interviews with stage hands and lighting technicians provide an interesting view behind the scenes.

TGV, la réussite française

June 2017 •French

London's Railways in the 1960s

April 2010 •English

The British Railways modernisation programme of the 1960s radically changed the rail network, and the British Transport Films unit and the TV news were there to capture it. Compiled here is never before released colour footage of Southern steam at Waterloo (with Nine Elms depot), all the major London stations, The Blue Pullman and early diesels, The Golden Arrow and Night Ferry service, goods and mail, steam on the Metropolitan Railway and building the Victoria Line.

It Is Not the Brazilian Homosexuals Who Are Perverse, But the Situation in Which They Live

June 2021 •Portuguese

Two queer Brazilians go skinny dipping in a lake where they talk about love, sex, colonialism and migration, on a pandemic summer afternoon in Berlin.

Secrets of the Dead: Death on the Railroad

January 2013 •English

Party auf dem Todesstreifen - Soundtrack der Wende

July 2014 •German

Einmal Hooligan - immer Hooligan?

January 2006 •German

The documentary accompanies a group of soccer fans twice on a train ride to a soccer match - first in 1991 and then again in 2006. Have the fans learned something or are they still hooligans?

Hear That Train a Comin'

June 2006 •English

Meet the crew of the Union Pacific Challenger No. 3985, the largest and most powerful steam engine in the world. This colorful documentary is a behind-the-scenes look at the conductors, engineers and mechanics who keep this fickle train running, an engaging history of steam power, and a scenic tour the Great Plains -- from Cheyenne, Wyo., through Denver and across Nebraska to the Omaha headquarters of the Union Pacific.

The Unpredictable Factor

November 2022 •German

In today's climate debate, there is only one factor that cannot be calculated in climate models - humans. How can we nevertheless understand our role in the climate system and manage the crisis? Climate change is a complex global problem. Increasingly extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and more difficult living conditions - including for us humans - are already the order of the day. Global society has never faced such a complex challenge. For young people in particular, the frightening climate scenarios will be a reality in the future. For the global south, it is already today. To overcome this crisis, different perspectives are needed. "THE UNPREDICTABLE FACTOR" goes back to the origins of the German environmental movement, accompanies today's activists in the Rhineland in their fight against the coal industry and gives a voice to scientists from climate research, ethnology and psychology.

Berliner Trance

September 1993 •English

This lost classic, shot on 16mm in a wintry Berlin in 1993, explores the origins of the German trance scene. Featuring interviews with fresh-faced selectors including Laurent Garnier and MFS Records founder Mark Reeder, the documentary also feature footage from the city's iconic Love Parades in 1991 and 1993.

The Case of Bruno Lüdke

February 2021 •German

The incredible story of Bruno Lüdke (1908-44), the alleged worst mass murderer in German criminal history; or actually, a story of forged files and fake news that takes place during the darkest years of the Third Reich, when the principles of criminal justice, subjected to the yoke of a totalitarian system that is beginning to collapse, mean absolutely nothing.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

January 1988 •German

Documents the remodeling of the Ostbahnhof in Berlin Friedrichshain into the central station of the GDR.

Manchmal möchte man fliegen

November 1981 •German

Documentary about a youth work brigade working on the construction of a tower block in Berlin-Marzahn