DW

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.

Ai Weiwei is a global star and an enigma. DW followed him for a year for this intimate portrait. The film shows Ai Weiwei at home, at work, and on the road for work, as he prepares his latest series of works focused on refugees and their fates.

The third part of the Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in the shortened version, prepared by Cord Garben. Staged at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, 2012

The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine is not only waged with bombs, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, but also in the media. It is a "propaganda battle" internally and externally. Russia spreads targeted disinformation in order to systematically devalue news. At the same time, their own population should be convinced that they want to liberate Ukraine from Nazis. Ukraine's narrative wants to emotionally mobilize its own population and strengthen resistance to the aggressor. Spindoctors are of particular importance in the propaganda battle over Ukraine. On the Ukrainian side, it's often influencers like Oleksiy Arestovych. On the Russian side, Vladimir Solovyov, Putin's snout, is supposed to sell the war to his own people with his daily TV talks. The documentary shows the new front lines of virtual warfare and provides insights into the populists' bag of tricks on social networks.

"What would the world be like without Beethoven?" That’s the provocative question posed by this music documentary from Deutsche Welle. To answer it, the film explores how Ludwig van Beethoven's innovations continue to have an impact far beyond the boundaries of classical music, 250 years after his birth.

Documentary about the connection between diet and the brain.

For more than a decade, wildfires of unprecedented force have been devouring our lives, homes and forests at a steady pace. Each year, 350 million hectares of forest go up in smoke, the equivalent of six times the size of France. In the US, the fire season now lasts up to two months longer than a generation ago, and the surface burnt annually has multiplied by three. This film sets out on a gripping journey of investigation from Europe to the US, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia to follow the work of a global team of dedicated firefighters, scientists and fire experts as they investigate why our forests are going up in flames, and act on an unexpected discovery: if we want to save our forests, homes, health and our climate, we need to radically change our attitude towards fire and the way we fight wildfires.

Although presented as anonymous and confidential, the data collected by mobile apps is in fact sold by brokers on a vast global market. As part of the Data Broker Files investigation, German journalists reveal the inner workings of a lucrative system that operates outside any regulatory framework.

June 1941, during World War II. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler orders the mass abduction of particularly well-bred young children from Poland and the occupied territories of the Soviet Union in order to be educated in German culture, by both state schools and German families…

Mariam comes from Fana, a town nearby the Malian capital. At 5, she was sexually abused by a family acquaintance, raped by her cousin at 13 and by her brother-in-law at 16. Today, she deals with her traumas through dance.

Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948. Why was he killed and what events occurred before and after his murder? This documentary shows how India was dogged by nationalism and religious conflict on its path to independence - and how these factors mark the country to this day.

The race for supremacy in the age of artificial intelligence is on: between the USA, China and Europe. Between big tech companies and start-ups. Who will win the competition? Will Europe be left behind? And who will determine a technology that will shape the future of humanity?

A detailed reconstruction of the events from Nov. 9th to 11th, 1989, which led to the Berlin wall tumbling down, on a local, national and international level.

The 9th Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most popular pieces of classical music in the world. Even those who are not passionate about the classical music recognize the famous Ode to Joy. Despite the grim context in which it was created, the 9th Symphony leaves us fascinated, moved and uplifted by its creativity, its power and its culmination in the Ode to Joy. More than 160 years after it was written, Beethoven’s hymn to brotherhood was adopted by the European Union as its official anthem. But Beethoven’s Ninth is also met with enthusiasm far beyond the borders of Europe. What’s the explanation for its never ending success? What is it about this work of art that fascinates people all over the world?

The stories of Jewish cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived Auschwitz, and of star conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who worked with the Nazis, provide insight. The film centers around two people who represent musical culture during the Third Reich - albeit in very different ways. Wilhelm Furtwängler was a star conductor; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the cellist of the infamous Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. Both shared a love for the classical German music.

A milestone in physics: In 2015, scientists proved the existence of gravitational waves. These waves travel billions of light-years through space, eventually reaching Earth and bringing us insights that were previously unattainable.

Berlin’s Museum Island, the cultural center of the German capital on the Spree river, houses a large number of art pieces from all over the globe, from the Stone Age to the present day. A walk through their great institutions to marvel at their masterpieces.

For many, the Russian city of Perm might seem like the end of the world, isolated in the foothills of the Ural mountains. But it is in this rapidly developing industrial city – which is establishing itself as one of Russia’s modern cultural centers – that the Greek conductor Teodor Currentzis has been quietly revolutionizing classical music with his ensemble musicAeterna. The film follows the recording sessions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, documenting the artists’ habits and painting a portrait of this exuberant conductor.

Dmytro Dokunov, a Ukrainian cinematographer, is deployed in a combat unit to face the Russian invasion with his mobile camera always recording.

Philipp Melanchthon decisively shaped the history of the Reformation in Germany and renewed German education. In the shadow of his fatherly friend Martin Luther, he tirelessly tried to reconcile Reformation and humanism, Protestantism and Catholicism.