Ilona Grundmann Filmproduction

This live recording was culled from seven September 1992 concerts given in Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt by the Ensemble Modern, a Frankfurt-based chamber orchestra that performs only contemporary music. Composed and conducted by Frank Zappa.

When the first adventure of the cosmonaut appeared in 1961 with "Unternehmen Stardust", not even the two German authors, Clark Darlton and K.H. Scheer, had any idea of the tenacity of their hero.

Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world of both German and French cinema. In 1936, together with Henri Langlois, she founded the Cinémathèque Française with the goal of saving from destruction films, costumes, sets, posters, and other treasures of the 7th Art. A Jew exiled in Paris, she became a pillar of the capital's cultural scene, where she promoted German cinema.

"Laughing with Hitler" is a journey into a supposedly humorless time. In the Third Reich, however, the Führer and his Nazi bigwigs were laughed at. The political jokes of the Hitler years were a barometer of true public opinion. But those who dared to make jokes critical of the regime lived dangerously. In the early Nazi era, Hitler jokes were punished as "insidious", during the war even as "undermining of military strength" and the penalty was the death penalty! The conflict with the Nazi authorities ended more mildly for other pranksters: the cheeky cabaret artist Werner Finck was deported to a concentration camp, but was released again.

The tumultuous history of Hungary through the twentieth century is viewed through the saga of the Hungarian-Jewish, furniture-manufacturing family, the Vendels. After taking over the once successful, but now failing, family business in the 1930s, the family patriarch's dashing elder son decides that the family needs an infusion of new blood. A matchmaker presents him with a photo of a pretty German nursery school teacher. When the two meet, they instantly fall in love, but because Hungary has an alliance with Germany, and the Third Reich prohibits marriage between Gentiles and Jews, the couple must hide their union. Their marriage ultimately stands as a dark foreshadowing of rougher times to come as troubles ensue with the advent of World War II, when the family, its employees and servants must retreat to the basement, where the shop emerges increasingly as a refuge in a world growing more violent and less tolerant.

The author reports on the secret submarine operations of the USA and the Soviet Union, including "risky espionage missions by US combat swimmers in Soviet waters", which resulted in numerous fatal accidents. Both "superpowers" are also said to have lost submarines in various missions due to accidents or collisions. In the film, Pohlmann gives a voice to Ola Tunander, a professor at the Institute for Peace Research in Oslo at the time, who is "certain" that "the alleged Soviet submarines that were unsuccessfully hunted by the Scandinavians in the early 1980s were actually part of the Americans' psychological warfare". The "common goal of some very senior Swedish officers, the British Thatcher administration and Ronald Reagan's policy" was "to discredit the Olof Palme government and its initiative for a nuclear weapons-free Northern Europe".

The life and struggles of Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph Maria of Habsburg-Lorraine (1832-1867), emperor of the Second Mexican Empire as Maximilian I of Mexico from 1864 to 1867 (under the wing of Emperor Napoleon III and the French Empire), his tragic confrontation with Mexican leader Benito Juárez, the defeat of the will and the end of a dream.

The reconnaissance flights of the Americans into East Block airspace were more numerous and more dangerous than originally claimed. From the sky, the Cold War was waged in earnest - with cameras, aerial canons and rockets. There were countless weapons launched, prisoners taken and fatalities suffered. During the secret aerial war the superpowers forced patently western aircraft into Soviet airspace; Western Germany was a sort of base for America's espionage activities. The film discloses a multitude of heretofore unknown actions, elucidated by impressive, often emotional commentary by the actual participants. The contemporary witnesses discuss operations including the dropping of agents during night flights, and top-secret actions undertaken to detect potential bases for nuclear attacks.

Do animals have feelings? Empathy even? A documentary with some insights due to advancing technology.

UFO's, Lügen und der Kalte Krieg (UFOs, Lies and the Cold War) is a German documentary. It deals with the phenomenon of mass UFO sightings during the Cold War and the reasons why UFOs are not a topic of discussion for mass-media today, which is considered to be serious.

A German Film Award winning short documentary on the activities on Ellis Island between 1900-1934.

This sobering roundup of nuclear mishaps highlights lost bombs, reckless acts and dangerous misuses of nuclear materials following World War II.