Florianfilm

Rock Hudson was a virile screen idol who was the epitome of clean-cut masculinity. He was one of the first Hollywood celebrities to die of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, providing the killer virus with a famous face amidst the American AIDS paranoia of 1985. 2010 is not only the 25th anniversary of his death but would also have been his 85 birthday. The film investigates the many film roles Rock Hudson played, against the more intimate and private world of Roy Fitzgerald.

St. Petersburg, Russia, December 30th, 1916. Grigori Rasputin is assassinated. The story of the humble peasant who became the most influential adviser to czarina Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of the last czar, Nicholas II Romanov.

For the USA, World War 2 was an all-out war - to mobilize the masses, the US government launched a huge propaganda campaign and cinema, the medium of the masses, was quite simply their most important weapon. Government authorities monitored the production of feature films and the military itself produced documentaries aimed at rallying the American people to support the troops. This film tells the story of four Hollywood directors of European origin, who returned to the "Old World" during the Second World War to make propaganda documentaries for the US Army at the front: William Wyler from Alsace, Frank Capra from Italy, Anatole Litvak from Ukraine and - in post-war Germany - Billy Wilder from Austria.

The biography of Hildegard Knef – born in Ulm in 1925, died in Berlin in 2002 – reflects post-war and divided Germany. It also reflects the vitality, hypocrisy, and sensationalism of our society and the media that feeds it. The film features numerous original interviews with Knef, excerpts from feature films, concert recordings that testify to her stage presence, which is still incredible today, as well as TV reports from Berlin, New York, and elsewhere. In addition to her, friends and relatives, contemporary witnesses, colleagues, and journalists also have their say.

The collar of his coat turned up in New York: Images which have collaborated on building a myth – the image of eternal and misunderstood youth. Unlike Marlon Brando, the proletarian rebel with identifiable goals, James Dean was the timeless and androgynous youthful rebel. His death on the Interstate 46 leads us back to 1950s America, a time when youth was re-interpreted all anew.

A feature film that traces the 50-year journey behind Confessions of Felix Krull, revealing the writer’s hidden struggle with his homosexuality. Though a literary superstar with a polished, upper-class façade and a married life with six children, Mann’s diaries expose an insecure man suppressing deep desires. The film follows Mann’s creative and personal exile—from Eltville to Paris and Lisbon—using archival letters and diary entries alongside dramatized scenes. It blurs the lines between Mann and his seductive alter ego Felix Krull, both masters of deception navigating identity, longing, and survival amid exile and political upheaval. This hybrid documentary unveils the fragile, often hidden man behind the myth.

She was the first to study gorillas in their natural environment: the high mountains of Rwanda, where she settled in 1967. For nearly twenty years, Dian Fossey lived with the gorillas, observed their behavior, and changed the way people viewed them. Her relentless fight against poaching prevented the species from becoming extinct. But in December 1985, the primatologist was murdered, and the mystery surrounding her death remains unsolved. Former colleagues, scientists, and biographers shed light on the impact of her work, but also on the darker sides of her personality and her uncompromising commitment.

Arus Nersisyan manages the Arpa nature reserve and a cultural festival in south-western Armenia. Here, on the border with the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, she wants to give people in the middle of the conflict zone a better future. Thanks to her commitment, the leopard is also living here again.

Many people have Route 66 on their bucket list: To ride it once, from Chicago to Los Angeles, on a Harley. Or in an old American road cruiser. And experience what we know from the movies: the endless expanse of the plains, the endless deserts with their shimmering red mesas, the small-town USA. Even after 100 years, Route 66 stands for freedom and adventure, the promise of happiness in the USA. But it also stands for the many people who live along Route 66 but are not part of its history. And thus for the USA itself and its contradictions.

Several high-budget epic films became Omar Sharif (1932-2015) a film star. He was an actor, but also a bridge player, a womanizer, a bon vivant; he was a man full of contradictions, who enjoyed card games more than movies; he was an eternal nomad who spent half his life in a hotel.

The extraordinary story of Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940), creator of Nils Holgersson, a memorable and legendary literary character, and the first female storyteller to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1909); a woman as pioneering in her life as in her remarkable work.

The second episode is a journey of discovery through the southern Irish Midlands. This is where the heart of Ireland beats. Largely unknown, this region reveals worlds of scenic beauty, tradition, and Irish cheerfulness—despite the decidedly changeable weather.

To mark the 60th birthday of the multi-talented comedian, singer and author Hape Kerkeling, the two documentary filmmakers André Schäfer and Eric Friedler have created a quiet, thoughtful and entertaining portrait of this often anarchic humorist. The film tells of his rapid rise as a teenager, his time and the blows of fate during the AIDS epidemic, the controversial forced outing, his confident exit from the show business and his new beginning. The film is a sensitive insight into the family history and a fast-paced journey through the career stages of a formative figure in German TV entertainment.

Exceptionally talented actor and bridge-builder between black and white, a political icon and artist at the same time: that was Sidney Poitier. He made Hollywood history in 1964 when he became the first black man to win an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role − and thus became the first international black superstar. He grew up in poor circumstances in the Bahamas − with only a few years of schooling. Despite this humble start, Sidney Poitier became a film legend committed artistically and politically against all odds. What compromises did he have to make? What shaped him? This documentary gives an intimate insight into the eventful life of the actor and director, who died in January 2022 at the age of 94.

British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the world's most translated author: her heroes, private detective Hercule Poirot and amateur sleuth Miss Marple, are known the world over. But who is the woman behind her bestsellers? A biographical search for clues, the unraveling of an iridescent personality whose existence and works were shaped by the tragic history of the 20th century: the eventful life of the Queen of Crime.