Tag Archives: Germany

Der Nachtmahr / The Nightmare (2015) Achim Bornhak, Carolyn Genzkow, Sina Tkotsch, Wilson Gonzalez, Drama, Mystery

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After a night of partying in a mansion with a swimming pool, teenager Tina starts to experience weird things. She hallucinates a violent deja-vu, and hears discomforting sounds. At home she is haunted by a mysterious creature that only she can see. The film suggest several explanations for her visions. Is she overly tense? Psychotic? Drugged? Jealous? Her parents and friends seem to think she is going through a phase. Tina is convinced that the creature is for real, and she starts identifying with in a way that prompts her parents to take drastic measures on her behalf.
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Houston, We Have a Problem! (2016) Bostjan Virc, Ziga Virc, Documentary, Drama

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Cold War-era international intrigue, declassified top-secret documents, and a clandestine deal between John F. Kennedy and Yugoslavia’s president Josip Tito are just the tip of the iceberg in this absorbing directorial debut from filmmaker Žiga Virc. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Houston, We Have a Problem! explores the myth behind the origins of America’s race to be the first country to send a man to the moon, and a supposed multi-billion-dollar deal involving America’s purchase of Yugoslavia’s space program in the early 1960s.
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Martin Luther (1953) Irving Pichel, Niall MacGinnis, John Ruddock, Pierre Lefevre, Biography, Drama, History

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This biographical account of Martin Luther’s actions that eventually created the Protestant and Lutheran religions was filmed in conjunction with the Lutheran Church. Niall MacGinnis portrays the monk who’s nailing of his list of 95 theses to the church door in Worms created a stir so large that it shook the very foundations of the Catholic Church. This film shows the struggle between Luther and the organized church and how the Catholic Church was not fully explaining things he questioned, which led him to be labeled a heretic.
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Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge (1924) Fritz Lang, Margarete Schön, Gertrud Arnold, Theodor Loos, Drama, Adventure, Fantasy

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After Siegfried’s dead, Kriemhild marries Etzel, the King of the Huns. She gives birth to a child, and invites her brothers for a party. She tries to persuade Etzel and the other Huns, that they kill Hagen, the murderer of Siegfried, but he is protected by her brothers. A fierce battle begins to force her brothers to give Hagen to her.
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Adams æbler / Adam’s Apples (2005) Anders Thomas Jensen, Ulrich Thomsen, Mads Mikkelsen, Nicolas Bro, Comedy, Crime, Drama

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Ivan is a priest in a rural church known for the apples that grow on a large tree in front. He’s odd: seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, in denial about personal facts, and convinced he’s at war with Satan. The rectory is a half-way house for recently paroled convicts. Adam arrives for 12 weeks, a large, tough neo-Nazi, first baffled by Ivan’s thick-headed optimism, then angry. He vows to break Ivan’s faith. Meanwhile, in exasperation at Ivan’s insistence, Adam sets a personal goal: to bake an apple pie. All goes awry for the tree: crows, worms, lightening. The Book of Job gives Adam perverse insight, and his hooligan mates provide the resolution’s spring.
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The Testament of Dr. Mabuse / Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933) Fritz Lang, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Otto Wernicke, Gustav Diessl, Crime

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After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum (Oscar Beregi), he observes the professor’s preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist (Rudolf Klein-Rogge). When Mabuse’s notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann (Otto Wernicke) must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor’s whereabouts, and capture him for good.
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Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) Fritz Lang, Paul Richter, Margarete Schön, Theodor Loos, Fantasy, Drama, Adventure

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Siegfried, son of King Sigmund, hears of the beautiful sister of Gunter, King of Worms, Kriemhild. On his way to Worms, he kills a dragon and finds a treasure, the Hort. He helps Gunther to win Krimhild, a mask that makes him invisible proves to be very useful. But because Brunhild is cursing Kriemhild, she tells her what really happened. Now Brunhild wants Siegfried’s head. Is Gunther going to do her that favor?
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I’m Going to Change My Name / Alaverdi (2012) Mariya Saakyan, Arina Adju, Mariya Atlas, Evgeniy Tsyganov, Drama

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Evridika, a neglected teenager, lives with her mother Sona in Alaverdi, a small Armenian town. While Sona, a conductor of a world famous choir, is often away, Evridika struggles with her blossoming sexuality, suicidal thoughts and the search for the father she has never known. Each day she drowns deeper inside herself and sees no reasons to live until she meets Pyotr, Sona’s ex-lover. He will become the key to Evridika’s new perception of the world.
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Deep End (1971) Jerzy Skolimowski, Jane Asher, John Moulder-Brown, Karl Michael Vogler, Comedy, Drama, Romance

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John Moulder-Brown plays a teen-aged London bathhouse attendant who forms a business alliance with female attendant Jane Asher. The object is to obtain better tips from their clients, but soon the impressionable Moulder-Brown falls in love with the older Asher. Brushed off by the girl in favor of a handsome swimming instructor, Moulder-Brown makes several halfhearted attempts at revenge. When the boy and girl finally do get together sexually, the event is motivated by lust and has tragic results…
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Die endlose Nacht / The Endless Night (1963) Will Tremper, Karin Hübner, Louise Martini, Harald Leipnitz, Drama

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A few hours at Berlin-Tempelhof airport. The thick fog force the travelers to persevere on the ground. Among them is a businessman who is facing ruin and not shy away, throwing his girlfriend to another man’s neck in order to save himself. A young actress has spent her last penny at the hairdresser and is stranded in a strange city. A farmer from Kenya falls spontaneously in love with a woman and offers her a new life.
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Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage / Faust: A German Folk Legend (1926) F.W. Murnau, Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Drama, Fantasy, Horror

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God and Satan war over earth; to settle things, they wager on the soul of Faust, a learned and prayerful alchemist. During a plague, Faust despairs and burns his books after failing to stop death; Satan sends Mephisto to tempt Faust, first with insight into treating the plague and then with a day’s return to youth. Mephisto is clever, timing the end of this 24 hours as Faust embraces the beautiful Duchess of Parma. Faust trades his soul for youth. Some time later, he’s bored, and demands on Easter Sunday that Mephisto take him home. Faust promptly sees and falls in love with the beautiful Gretchen, whose liaison with him brings her dishonor. Is there redemption? Who wins the wager?
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Supermarkt (1974) Roland Klick, Charly Wierczejewski, Eva Mattes, Michael Degen, Action, Crime, Drama

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18-year old Willi is living on the street – there are no goals in his life. There, he meets several people, helping but also cheating him. When he finally meets Monica, he realizes that there are people out there whose lives are even more desperate than his. So he’s trying to help her (and him) by planning a great robbery on a supermarket’s money transporter.
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Im Spinnwebhaus / Spiderwebhouse (2015) Mara Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Ben Litwinschuh, Lutz Simon Eilert, Helena Pieske, Drama, Fantasy

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Jonas is already head of the family at just 12 years of age. He has been helping his two younger siblings and supporting his mother, Sabine, since his father left. Sabine is very loving towards her children but she often loses her patience and disappears into her room for the day. Mysterious demons drive her to spend a weekend away to relax in the “sunny valley”. But the weekend grows into weeks in which the three children hear nothing from their mother. Food and money have long since run out, the house has become more and more like a haunted castle: a spiderweb house. Jonas tries his best to maintain the appearance of an intact family. On the hunt for something to eat, he meets a young man, Felix Count of Gütersloh, who speaks in rhymes and declares himself to be not quite right in the head. Rather like a guardian angel, he takes Jonas under his wing and shows him how to get by in a world without adults. The film is less a social drama than a modern-day fairy tale shot in black and white. The audience is immersed in the eerily beautiful world of the children which unfolds its own particular magic.
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