Henry Carter Hull

Two wealthy, handsome couples--one English, one American--meet at a German spa and forge an immediate bond. Through nine seasons at the spa, the splendid foursome share the same tastes, the same desires, and the same elegantly perfect lives. But in a series of startling time and perspective shifts, we learn, little by little, just how far short of perfection their lives really were.

An East Berlin intelligence officer is assigned to keep an eye on Georg Dreyman, a respected playwright, and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland.

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....

Martha is the chef who fusses and obsesses over each dish before it leaves the kitchen. The demands of her job and her natural shyness keep her from meeting new people. When her sister suddenly dies, Martha adopts Lina, her eight-year-old niece, completely changing both lives. Martha gets unexpected help from Mario, Martha's hunky new sous chef, who is not only a whiz on the chopping block but knows sundry magic tricks and jokes to keep Lina's spirits...

Two roommates in a private sanatorium in early-1950s East Germany are extremely different from one another. Josef is a communist policeman, while Hubertus is a Lutheran vicar. While Josef reads The Communist manifesto, Hubertus prepares his sermon. Above their beds hang Stalin and Christ. The film offers both suspense and comedy, as the two begrudgingly develop tolerance and respect for one another. Orginally East German officials had not been open...

Filmed as the GDR crumbled, this somber, finely drawn portrait of life in East Berlin depicts a young architect whose life and goals are strangled by communist dogma represented by the older generation. One of the first fiction films to deal with both the GDR and unification period. Daniel feels like a stranger in his own land. His architectural plans for a new development have been rejected for not complying with standardized designs. His colleagues...

Pool shark and hustler Jaeckie Zucker is up to his ears in debt. In a stroke of luck, his mother dies and leaves an inheritance. Before he can cash in, his mother has requested the difficult task of reconciling with his estranged Orthodox brother Samuel.

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...

Writer Spencer Leigh tours various sites in Hamburg associated with Beatles in 1961 and the music scene at the time, including K&K Center of Beat, the Reeperbahn, the Top Ten Club, the Star Club, the Kaiserkeller Club, the Indra Club, Bambi Kino, and Kemp's English Pub. Includes a visit to an exhibition, The Hamburg sound, at the Museum of Hamburg History, and interviews with writer Ulf Kr�uger, collector Uwe Baschke, and musician Kingsize Taylor....

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...