Weltbühne Berlin - Die Zwanziger Jahre

A train speeds through the country on its way to Berlin, then gradually slows down as it pulls into the station. It is very early in the morning, about 5:00 AM, and the great city is mostly quiet. But before long there are some signs of activity, and a few early risers are to be seen on the streets. Soon the new day is well underway. It's just a typical day in Berlin, but a day full of life and energy.

Morning reveals New York harbor, the wharves, the Brooklyn Bridge. A ferry boat docks, disgorging its huddled mass. People move briskly along Wall St. or stroll more languorously through a cemetery. Ranks of skyscrapers extrude columns of smoke and steam. In plain view. Or framed, as through a balustrade. A crane promotes the city's upward progress, as an ironworker balances on a high beam. A locomotive in a railway yard prepares to depart, while an arriving ocean liner jostles with attentive tugboats. Fading sunlight is reflected in the waters of the harbor. The imagery is interspersed with quotations from Walt Whitman, who is left unnamed.

The director embarks on a journey to reveal the story behind the legendary Café Nagler, owned by her family during the 1920s in Berlin, and finds that historical truths can be overrated.

"Had it not been for Hitler, I would have been born a German-Jewish child, more German than Jewish, in a small village in the South of Germany. But as it happened, I was born in Argentina, my mothertongue is Spanish. I came to Germany 17 years ago." It is here, where author and director Jeanine Meerapfel starts searching for her own Jewish identity, being confronted time and time again with Federal Republic reality.

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.

In 1970, Melek Tez came to Berlin as a young worker from Turkey. A confident woman, she first countered racist resentments and remarks with irony and wit. Jokingly, she even referred to herself as a "Kümmeltürkin", a derogatory German term for Turkish migrants. Yet after fourteen humiliating years, her fighting spirit has given way to resignation: Melek Tez is returning to Turkey. Blending documentary, interviews and re-enacted scenes, director Jeanine Meerapfel chronicles Melek Tez' life experience.

An intimate portrait and saga of four film pioneers--Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack who rose from immigrant poverty through personal tragedies persevering to create a major studio with a social conscience.

Nobody captured the atmosphere of 1990s Berlin better than German photographer Daniel Josefsohn, who died in 2016 at the age of 54, leaving his mark in advertising with his irreverent aesthetic and punk sensibility. It was his spontaneous, imperfect images shot for an MTV campaign in 1994 that first made him famous.

It's the roaring twenties in Berlin. The Tigress, a gorgeous, wild, and very independent street walker, falls for a handsome grifter. When one of her lovers gets jealous, she betrays him and has to skip town. The grifter reveals he has what it takes to move in upper class circles and suggests they flee to Carlsbad, a spa in Czechoslovakia. Does he love her or is he only using her? Is the Tigress madly in love with him or does she want to satisfy her vanity and drop him once he falls for her? The ancient cat and mouse game between a man and a woman unfolds amidst sensual seduction, the scheme of robbing a rich Texan and the jilted lover arriving from Berlin, gun drawn.

On February 26, 1920, Robert Wiene's world-famous film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at the Marmorhaus in Berlin. To this day, it is considered a manifesto of German expressionism; a legend of cinema and a key work to understand the nature of the Weimar Republic and the constant political turmoil in which a divided society lived after the end of the First World War.

Eight hundred German filmmakers (cast and crew) fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The film uses voice-overs, archival footage, and film clips to examine Berlin's vital filmmaking in the 1920s; then it follows a producer, directors, composers, editors, writers, and actors to Hollywood: some succeeded and many found no work. Among those profiled are Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Peter Lorre. Once in Hollywood, these exiles helped each other, housed new arrivals, and raised money so others could escape. Some worked on anti-Nazi films, like Casablanca. The themes and lighting of German Expressionism gave rise in Hollywood to film noir.

In the early 80's die sozialistische kleiderordnung ( The Socialist Dress Code) in East Berlin is attacked. By black and colourful punks. Youth clubs, restaurants and cafes are closed for the punks. Where to go? Their homes are raided by the police.

An intimate and moving portrait of one of the most remarkable women in American history. It is the story of a lonely, unhappy child who became the most admired and respected woman in the world. Richard Kaplan's lively documentary reveals the human face behind the American icon, beginning with the emotional deprivation suffered by this plain, awkward little girl born into a socially prominent and powerful family. Though she would eventually marry a man who would look beyond her awkwardness, Eleanor was not content to be the proper, silent wife to her husband Franklin's extraordinary political career. Instead, she began a lifelong crusade to speak out about injustice and oppression in any form. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

Berlin is a 2009 documentary series co-developed by the BBC and the Open University. Written and presented by Matt Frei, the series has three 60-minute episodes, each dealing with a different aspect of the history of Germany's capital city.

In late 1920s Berlin, Franz Biberkopf is released from prison and vows to go straight. However, he soon finds himself embroiled in the city’s criminal underworld.

A german reality-TV soap opera with various changing protagonists, mainly young people and bachelors, trying to live their lifes in the giant metropole of Berlin.

The mini-series follows the construction and history of the famous Adlon hotel in Berlin, as seen through the eyes of Sonja Schadt, the youngest member of the wealthy fictional Schadt family who are friends with the Adlons.

Artists from the UK and Ireland compete by creating portraits of famous people.

Beneath the decadence of 1929 Berlin, lies an underworld city of sin. Police investigator Gareon Rath has been transferred from Cologne to the epicenter of political and social changes in the Golden Twenties.

The single mother Caterina Schöllack takes over the management of the Galant dance school on Kurfürstendamm ("Ku'damm") in Berlin after the end of the Second World War. The father of their three daughters did not return to the family after the war, he is officially missing.

Life in Berlin in 1945 before, during and after the battle of Berlin seen through the eyes of those who were there at the time from common Berliners to Allied troops.

Berlin in the 1920s. A dazzling place, but times are not only golden, they are marked by poverty and crime. Vicky arrives in the city, led by promises of a better life, she’s looking for a job. But as soon as she gets there, her hopes and dreams are met with a cold awakening. With no place to stay and nothing to her name, she hires on to work as a saleswoman at a newly-established, glamorous department store. But the founders are also fighting for survival, just like Vicky. Times are tough, and it’s about to get tougher.