Ilka Grüning

Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.

Open details →

Unemployed and homeless actors following the dream of finding the future in South America. The manager Osvaldo Curtis tricks the group of colorful and failed artists to apply for a special visa overseas.

Open details →

In 1863, having escaped from a rock-quarry prison in Salt Lake, six inmates led by convicted murderer Pete Black take over a small wagon train headed by preacher Jacob Karns. Tensions and hardships grow as the travelers continue to trek toward California across dry, desolate country.

Open details →

A prison warden fights to prove one of his inmates was wrongly convicted.

Open details →

The title character, played by John Payne, is a ship's captain whose embittered behavior after losing his lady love seemingly leads to tragedy. Accused of deliberately scuttling his ship during a typhoon, Captain China hopes to clear himself by signing on as a common seaman on a vessel captain by his former first mate Brendensen. There's no love lost between the two men, and their mutual animosity is intensified when both fall in love with beautiful passenger.

Open details →

When he learns that a gangster has taken over his nightclub and murdered his partner, returning WWII hero Joe Miracle steals the money from the club's safe and hides in a settlement home, while the mob is on his tail.

Open details →

A young man succumbs to gambling fever.

Open details →

Wide-eyed and poor young Leonora weds an obsessive millionaire named Ohlrig, but the marriage is loveless. Even worse, Ohlrig seems to have manic, violent tendencies. Eventually, young Leonora escapes her unhappy life and begins working with New York City doctor Larry Quinada, who she soon falls for. Unfortunately, Ohlrig refuses to grant his wife a divorce, and things get even darker for Leonora when she realizes she's pregnant with his child.

Open details →

Encomium to Larry Hart (1895-1943), seen through the fictive eyes of his song-writing partner, Richard Rodgers (1902-1979): from their first meeting, through lean years and their breakthrough, to their successes on Broadway, London, and Hollywood. We see the fruits of Hart and Rodgers' collaboration - elaborately staged numbers from their plays, characters' visits to night clubs, and impromptu performances at parties. We also see Larry's scattered approach to life, his failed love with Peggy McNeil, his unhappiness, and Richard's successful wooing of Dorothy Feiner.

Open details →

In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.

Open details →

Joe Sullivan is itching to get out of prison. He's taken the rap for his accomplice Rick, a sadistic mobster who owes him $50,000 from the job they pulled. Rick sets up an escape for Joe, assuming that Joe will be killed while fleeing. But with the help of his love-struck girl Pat and his sympathetic legal caseworker Ann, Joe gets further than Rick intended...

Open details →

An innocent trucker takes it on the lam when he's accused of robbery.

Open details →

On New Year's Eve 1946, Sheila Page kills her husband Barney. She wishes that she could relive 1946 and avoid the mistakes that she made throughout the year. Her wish comes true but cheating fate proves more difficult than she anticipated.

Open details →

When a German art dealer living in the US returns to his native country he finds himself attracted to Nazi propaganda.

Open details →

Poor physics student Marie is studying at the Sorbonne in 1890s Paris. One of the few women studying in her field, Marie encounters skepticism concerning her abilities, but is eventually offered a research placement in Pierre Curie's lab. The scientists soon fall in love and embark on a shared quest to extract, from a particular type of rock, a new chemical element they have named radium. However, their research puts them on the brink of professional failure.

Open details →

Five officer candidates fight to prove their mettle during training.

Open details →

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

Open details →

A British bomber crew, including Australian and American, is shot down over Germany during a bombing run. The five make their way across a perilous Germany, intent on reaching the UK with the war secrets they have learned, battling Nazis along the way.

Open details →

During World War I, two German men friends who emigrated to the US and become millionaires agree on most things, with one major difference: one has taken the US side against Germany regarding the war, while the other stays stubbornly loyal to "the old country". His stubbornness results in tragedy for his old friend and a lesson in the consequences of blind loyalty.

Open details →

Five young adults in a small American town face the revelations of secrets that threaten to ruin their hopes and dreams.

Open details →

A New York City doctor tries to rescue a young woman from Nazi agents.

Open details →

A World War II Hollywood propaganda film detailing the dark underside of Nazism and the Third Reich set between two brothers, Kurt and Erik Franken, whom are SS officers in the Nazi party. Kurt learns and exposes the evils of the system to Erik and tries to convince him of the immoral stance that marches under the symbol of the swastika.

Open details →

Open details →

A young maid from the country looses her job as maid in k.u.k. Budapest, when she stays out too long with her beau, a soldier, who's saving money to buy a horse to open a transport company. After being unemployed for quite a while and her rent is long overdue, the landlady offers her a better job in a nightclub. Meanwhile the soldiers family has decided that her son should marry the daughter of a rich farmer. The soldier finds out about his girl friends profession, and accepts after struggling with himself the match his parents have made. At the day of his engagement his girl friend comes to his hometown with enough money to buy a horse, which leads to a conflict between her, the fiancee, her family, himself and his parents.

Open details →

Police battle against a gang of blackmailers known as The Crimson Circle.

Open details →

Drama set around a circus at Blackpool. A clown loves a young housekeeper and saves her from a fire caused by a jealous lion tamer.

Open details →

Open details →

A feature-length jewish joke: The heavily indebted Sami Bambus fakes his death, so that his debts are taken over by the greedy heirs, led by the scrounger Prellstein. The putative heir also brings speculators to the scene, and the general confusion can ultimately only be reconciled by the summoned uncle Salomon and by Samis' return from the dead.

Open details →

A German soldier lies wounded on the front line in the First World War. To avoid capture or death, he assumes the identity of a fallen French officer. As the German soldier happens to speak fluent French, nobody realizes the deception. The soldier begins a new life in Paris, yet remains in constant fear of being exposed as the ‘enemy’.

Open details →

Juggler and con-artist Caesar comes to Karlsbad, where he hopes to trick the renowned Vaudeville manager Willard into taking him to America. But when he actually meets Willard, Caesar mistakes him for a certain Mr. Lehmann. Willard / Lehmann is not amused, since Caesar constantly courts his daughter Eva. While fooling around, Caesar doesn’t notice that young Rosl, the daughter of innkeeper Mrs. Svoboda, has fallen in love with him. Finally, the romantic and comical confusion is resolved during a hotel fire.

Open details →

Scientist Martin Fellmann is tormented by an irrational fear of knives and the irresistible compulsion to murder his wife. Driven to the brink of madness by fantastic nightmares, he encounters a psychoanalyst who offers to treat the perplexing malady.

Open details →

Open details →

a silent movie by Heinz Paul

Open details →

In 1921, we follow two women - Marie and Grete - from the same poor Viennese neighborhood, as they try to better the lives of themselves and their families during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation.

Open details →

After the death of his parents, Anton pursues a career at the Schröter trading house in Breslau. He meets Sabine, the boss's sister, befriends Fritz, a rich merchant's son who is working as an intern, and associates with Baron von Rothsattel and his daughter Lenore, who are in financial difficulties and are further distressed by Anton's former schoolmate Veitel, who wants to get rich quick and joins forces with the unscrupulous lawyer Hippus. Fink decides to go to America, and Anton helps the Rothsattels, who retreat to an old estate in Poland and have to defend themselves against rebels there. Fink appears as a savior in distress and frees those who are trapped. Finally, Fink becomes engaged to Lenore, and Anton becomes a partner in the Schröter company and marries Sabine.

Open details →

The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State's debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy. The marriage with Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia, would solve everything, but a crucial letter of hers about the engagement has been stolen. Besides, a bunch of revolutionaries and a dubious businessman have other plans regarding the Grand Duke. With the intrusion of adventurer Philipp Collins into the Grand Duke's affairs, a series of frantic chases, plots and counter-plots begins.

Open details →