Erich Honecker ruled the GDR for 18 years. His fall in 1989 heralded the downfall of the state that had called itself "the better Germany" for 40 years. Nazi victim and autocrat, bourgeois and power-conscious: Honecker was an ideological hardliner who coordinated the construction of the Wall in 1961 and whose regime was known as an unjust state for Wall deaths, firing orders, the Stasi and forced adoptions. In the wake of the fall of communism, the former model socialist fell into homelessness and found himself on the run in his own country. Suffering from cancer, he managed to evade responsibility before a court by emigrating to Chile, where he died in 1994. This gripping documentary portrays the rise and fall of this contradictory German politician with an impressive array of top-class international and national contemporary witnesses. Erich Honecker would have been 100 years old on August 25, 2012.
Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.
On the 160-hectare grounds of the former Friedrichsfelde Palace Park, the Berlin Animal Park was established in the 1950s with the active support of the local population.
A retrospective look at the youth cultures born in the German Democratic Republic. A celebration of the lust for life, a contemporary trip into the world of skate, a tale on three heroes and their boards, from their childhood in the seventies, through their teenage rebellion in the eighties and the summer of 1989, when their life changed forever, to 2011.
This color documentary tells the story of the "Mamais." In 1960, a group of workers at the Bitterfeld chemical plant set themselves the task of becoming the first "socialist brigade" in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to act in accordance with the slogan "Work, learn, and live socialist.
Popular movie trailers from 2012
These some of the most viewed trailers for movies released in 2012:
From Boris Karloff to Mel Brooks - Frankenstein has fired the imagination of generations of artists who have created their own interpretation of this Gothic masterpiece.
This provocative and insightful film is the second in a series of documentaries that will reveal the secret knowledge embedded in the work of the greatest filmmaker of all time: Stanley Kubrick.
For one of the longest-running game franchises in history, Street Fighter creators Capcom needed something exceedingly special to accompany the release of their 25th anniversary edition of the game.
The year is 1895. Steam-powered ships fly through the air. Clockwork robots have replaced servants. And a grisly murder has taken place in the dark night of New York City.
