Carl Ballhaus

Ita Rina, a Film Star Who Declined an Invitation to Hollywood

Born in 1907, Italina Lida "Ida" Kravanja known as Ita Rina, became famous in Europe and especially in France for her role in Erotikon (1929) by Gustav Machaty. At the height of her glory she got married and refused an invitation to Hollywood. After that she appeared in a few German/Yugoslav co-productions but her career slowly faded.

Viel Lärm um nichts

Young lovers Hero and Claudio, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles Benedick and Beatrice to wed as well.

Venus on Trial

A sculptor, an enemy of modern art, sets an example. He sculpts a statue of Venus in the style of the Greek antiquity and buries it in a forest. When it's dug up in 1930, it's considered to be a 2 000 year old, antique statue.

Abel mit der Mundharmonika

Film by Waschneck.

Anna and Elizabeth

The two main people in the story are Anna, a young girl, who is thought of having the ability to heal people mysteriously. Elisabeth is a young - middle aged aristocratic woman, that is disabled and puts all her hopes in meeting Anna and having her disability heal by her. A strange ambivalent relationship develops between the two women.

Impossible Love

A deranged woman artist falls in love with a young sculptor. The impossible love ends tragically.

Into the Blue

A recent rediscovery, master cinematographer Schüfftan’s only film as a director is a free-spirited, fast-paced ode to being young, free, hopeful... and completely broke.

Cadets

The sensitive, music-loving son of a German general reluctantly attends a military academy and after warning a fellow officer to stay away from the cadet's attractive young stepmother, lands up being charged for murder.

M

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

Father and Son

About the wealthy Mr Markurell and his son, Johan, who is closing in on his graduation, and their life in the city of Wadköping. German language version.

A Student's Song of Heidelberg

A long time ago, John Miller emigrated from Germany to America. Now he wants his daughter Elinor to get to know his old homeland and sends her off to Heidelberg, where she is to study for a year. Pretty soon, the pretty young girl is in demand among the young men in town. Especially the students Dahlberg and Bornemann try to win Elinor's heart.

Westfront 1918

A group of German infantrymen of the First World War live out their lives in the trenches of France. They find brief entertainment and relief in a village behind the lines, but primarily terror fills their lives as the attacks on and from the French army ebb and flow. One of the men, Karl, goes home on leave only to discover the degradation forced on his family by wartime poverty. He returns to the lines in time to face an enormous attack by French tanks.

The Blue Angel

Prim professor Immanuel Rath finds some of his students ogling racy photos of cabaret performer Lola Lola and visits a local club, The Blue Angel, in an attempt to catch them there. Seeing Lola perform, the teacher is filled with lust, eventually resigning his position at the school to marry the young woman. However, his marriage to a coquette -- whose job is to entice men -- proves to be more difficult than Rath imagined.

The Brandenburg Arch

In the year 1914: The assistants of cobbler Lehmann compete for the affections of his daughter Frieda. Actually she’s in love with her ambitious cousin Fritz, but the cunning Franz knows how to string her along. When Fritz gets drafted, Frieda gives in and marries Franz. Soon Fritz is declared missing and the old cobbler dies of grief. Along the way Franz, who dodged the military service, earns his money with large-scale racketeering. Frieda is miserable. But then Fritz returns from Soviet captivity, prompting Frieda to divorce Franz. Finally Frieda accepts an inheritance from the USA and marries Fritz. With the money they open up a shoe store.

Spring Awakening

Moritz Stiefel faces expulsion due to poor marks. When he is caught with an essay titled “Shame and Lust”, he is indeed kicked out – instead of classmate Melchior Gabor, who actually penned it. Gabor was drawing on his experiences with neighbourhood girl Wendla. Then Wendla turns up pregnant. Stiefel descends into despair ... Exploitation between Eros and Thanatos in this “sexual tragedy of youth” based on Frank Wedekind’s play. Setting the film in the 1920s provided a chance to explore “modern” youth culture, complete with cigarettes, jazz music, the gramophone, and a goodly bit of alcohol. Richard Oswald, a master of films of manners and young sex beginning in the 1910s, fully explores the temptations of the youthful body, even early childhood flirtatiousness. At the same time, with his target audience in mind, the film laments the bigotry and double standards of the adult world.

The Old Fritz II

Silent epic on the final years of Frederick II.