Gregor Gysi

He has always been there. No one has been in German politics as long as Wolfgang Schäuble. He looked back on 50 years as a member of the German Bundestag. Schäuble was a man who helped shape the fate of the Republic for decades. He shaped politics - as the manager of German unity, for example. In 1990, he was the victim of an assassination attempt and fought his way back to life. He died in December 2023.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has fundamentally changed the German-Russian relationship. This is especially a special topic for those people who grew up in the GDR. Because what the USA were to many in the west, the Soviet Union was to many in the east: “the big brother”. And now? The invasion of Ukraine by Russia calls old certainties into question, rocked convictions, and runs like a rift through families. In this film, the ARD journalist and host Jessy Wellmer embarks on a very personal journey through the east of Germany. Born in 1979 in Güstrow in Mecklenburg, the Russian war of aggression also caused intensive discussions in her family which ultimately were the cause for this film. How do the East Germans think with regard to Russia? Why is there often a greater deal of closeness to Russia here? And what does it say about the divide which still exists in the German populace more than 30 years after the fall of the wall?

He is versatile, he is unmistakable, he is one of Berlin's best-known and most popular artists: Frank Zander. The singer and entertainer, who many of his fans affectionately call "Franky Boy", is still not thinking about retiring after more than 50 years on stage. Today, the man with the unmistakable grating voice celebrates his 80th birthday. After training as a graphic designer, Zander began his career as a singer and guitarist with the Gloomy Moon Singers, who later became the Gloomys. He began his solo career in the early 1970s and landed numerous hits with songs such as "Der Ur-Ur-Enkel von Frankenstein", "Ich trink auf dein Wohl, Marie" and "Oh, Susi", and was also discovered by television in the mid-1970s: Together with Helga Feddersen, he hosted the legendary "Plattenküche" and wrote a piece of television history. This was followed by quirky music and comedy shows such as "Bananas", "Vorsicht Musik" and "Känguru".

On October 10, 2005, Angela Merkel becomes German Chancellor. After 16 years, she now wants to clear the field. We take a look back at the many different faces of our Chancellor. In addition to Wolfgang Bosbach, Gregor Gysi and Kai Diekmann, extreme mountaineer Reinhold Messner, presenter Nina Eichinger, comedian Wigald Boning, former minister Annette Schavan, former President of the Bundestag Nobert Lammert, actress Uschi Glas and entrepreneur Gloria von Thurn und Taxis share their very personal views.

Left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht’s working day is marked by applause and admiration but also doubts and intrigues. This film follows her and her team: from the 2017 election campaign to her withdrawal from political leadership in 2019.

Harald Juhnke was a great entertainer, actor, comedian, singer, emcee and charmer. The stage was his life and success his drug, a life and a career with many ups and downs, triumphs and crashes. He loved his audience and the audience loved him. The film portrays the great entertainer. His family, friends, fellow artists and companions have their say.

No plot available for this movie.

One hundred years after the assassination of German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), we look back at the struggles of this pioneer of the Workers' International.

Is the WHO sick? The filmmaker and mother Lilian Franck reveals clandestine influences by the tobacco, pharmaceutical and nuclear industries on the organization. She shows a frightening portrayal of our present society, in which governmental politics is becoming obsolete. "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." - Martin Luther King

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.