Noted by legendary film critic Roger Ebert as one of his top ten favorite films of all time, this masterpiece from Oscar-nominated director Werner Herzog is an unforgettable portrait of madness and power. In the mid-16th century, after annihilating the Incan empire, Gonzalo Pizarro (Allejandro Repulles) leads his army of conquistadors over the Andes into the heart of the most savage environment on earth in search of the fabled City of Gold, El Dorado....

The scene is post-war Berlin. Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom) arrives in the city to stay with her brother and his German wife, Bettina. Reluctantly, Bettina takes Susanne into the Eastern Sector where they meet Ivo Kern (James Mason), a former lawyer who is being blackmailed into luring a man called Kastner to East Berlin, who is helping refugees to escape to the West. Sensing Susanne's attraction to the rogue ex-lawyer, Bettina confesses that she...

In this sweeping yet intimate romantic drama, which is also Germany's official submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, acclaimed director Dominik Graf illuminates the lives of two bold young women and one of classical literature's most celebrated figures with charm and contemporary energy. BELOVED SISTERS depicts the unconventional romance between two aristocratic sisters and a rebellious poet who took the European literary...

At once an invaluable photographic record of life in Weimer Berlin and a timeless demonstration of the cinema's ability to enthrall on a purely visceral level, Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (Berlin, die Symphonie der Grosstadt) offers a kaleidoscopic view of a single day in the life of a bustling metropolis. Carl Mayer (The Last Laugh), influenced by the naturalistic Kammerspiel movement, envisioned "a melody of pictures" sprung from daily reality...

Susanne is a young, single mother who lives a somewhat alternative, unstructured lifestyle. After quitting her job, she finds herself in trouble financially and attempts a minor insurance fraud to make ends meet. Despite its rare view of everyday socialism from a woman's perspective, East German officials were critical of this frank portrayal of a less-than-ideal socialist citizen and turned down all invitations for the film to be screened abroad....

By the time the DEFA Studio for Animation Film closed in 1992, it had produced more than 800 shorts in a wide variety of styles and techniques. The 16 animation films included in this collection were directed by 8 different animators between 1974 and 1990, and give a taste of animation production in East Germany. Established in 1955, the studio initially produced shorts exclusively for children. During the 1970s and '80s, however, films targeting...

In the summer of 1945, Dresden factory workers send their colleague, Kalle, hundreds of miles north to pick up carbide, which is needed for welding jobs in their factory. His attempts to bring the supplies back through the Soviet occupation zone become a hilarious odyssey full of high jinks and misadventures. A rare classic of German film comedy! Right after WWII, factory worker Karl Bluecher, nicknamed Kalle, sets out from Dresden for Wittenberge...

Based on the records of the Nuremberg trial of the chemical giant IG Farben; a story about the collaboration between international corporations and Nazi scientists, whose research contributed to the death of millions. Musical score by Hanns Eisler, electronic sound by Oskar Sala (Hitchcock's The Birds) and script by Friedrich Wolf. The chemist Dr. Hans Scholz lives through a tortuous political transformation and maturation process. Eventually, he...

What do real estate tycoon Donald Trump and the Heinz Tomato Ketchup dynasty have in common? Their ancestors come from Kallstadt, a small, quiet winegrowing village in the German Palatinate region. Can this really be a coincidence? Director Simone Wendel – also from Kallstadt – explores the issue.

Throughout his creative life, artist and filmmaker Jürgen Böttcher explored the theme of art and artists. This DVD includes six filmic milestones on this topic: Three of many (1961), Shunters (1984), Hermann Glöckner : a short visit (1984) and the Transformation trilogy (1984). One of (East) Germany's most important documentarists, Böttcher created over 40 films with a painter's eye. His debut film about his art students, Three of many, was banned...