Lupu Pick

Abel Gance et son Napoléon

This documentary focuses on the making of the 235-minute, silent epic Napoleon, the masterpiece of French director/writer/actor Abel Gance. Napoleon showcased Gance's talents with the camera, his use of multiple-images (like a split screen), and his handling of crowded action scenes -- all brought forward in this documentary by his later assistant, Nelly Kaplan. While Gance was shooting Napoleon in 1925-26, he and his crew were also being filmed for a documentary titled Autour de Napoleon. The only extant reels from that documentary are included in this film, as well as views of Gance's unique "triptychs" -- three different scenes lined up side-by-side across a super-wide screen to convey the effect of a panorama, or of three separate interludes. Nelly Kaplan put together this documentary using old footage, such as Gance filming the famous snowball fight at the Brienne military school and still photographs and excerpts from Gance's production diaries.

Spies

The mastermind behind a ubiquitous spy operation learns of a dangerous romance between a Russian lady in his employ and a dashing agent from the government's secret service.

The Last Horse Carriage in Berlin

A taxi driver in Berlin refuses to give up his horse and switch to motor transport.

Shattered

The everyday lives of a poverty-stricken railway trackman, his wife and daughter in a remote, isolated house in a winter landscape. One day, they receive a telegram announcing the arrival of the section inspector, who is to live with the family. After his arrival, a downward spiral begins.

Der Dummkopf

An overly trusting young man inherits the fortune of his great uncle and his scheming relatives plot to get their hands on the money.

Kill No More!

The director and co-writer Lupu Pick plays musician Erik Paulsson, who loses his beloved son after a peaceful yet critical poetry reading is raided by the tsarist forces. Paulsson, beside himself with grief, kills the officer responsible and is sentenced to life, which will mean 18 years in prison before he is free again. While he is inside, by a strange quirk of fate, his daughter Karin falls in love with writer Sebald Brückner, the son of the state prosecutor, who indicted Paulsson and is a staunch advocate of the death penalty. The conflict between the fathers does not impair the relationship of the young couple. However, when Sebald’s long-desired success on the stage is threatened by a vengeful theatre director who had sexually harassed Karin, he is enraged and kills the other man in a fight. The prosecutor now must face the blow of losing his own son to the death penalty.

Mr. Wu

Operette-like oriental fantasy about a forbidden love between en english boy and a chinese girl.

Die Rothenburger

A medical officer decides to become a doctor, change his name and devote his life to research after the woman he loves marries his best friend.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

A variation of the famous Oscar Wilde tale in which Dorian Gray's soul is manifested in a painting instead of his own body.

Es werde Licht!

A painter with syphilis infects his brother's wife and the child born of their affair.

A Night of Horror

An extremely jealous artist slips into a monkey costume and kills all those men who come too close to his wife, another artist.

Der chinesische Götze. Das unheimliche Haus. 3. Teil

All is not well in the Mollheim home. The elder Mollheim decides to marry off his daughter with an unusually large dowry, in exchange for a rare Chinese idol. The daughter of the house, being opposed to the idea, decides to hire a private detective to get to the bottom of it. The detective doesn't get far before the idol is stolen and its owner is murdered.

The Uncanny House

A young unemployed man gets a job as a private secretary by chance. A good salary, a first-class apartment - but things are not going right in his new residence. Notes warn him, a beautiful woman appears in the mirror, valuable documents disappear from the tightly locked safe.

Revenge of the Dead

Ferenc life seems to be going great but after a dinner with his employer and his guest at which they discuss a unsolved murder case everything he has achieved begins to slip away from him. He plan to escape with his lover Czenczi but madness and an grisly end await them.

The Artificial Man

Part of the artificial-creature series encompassing Der Golem (1914 and 1920), Alraune (1918, 1928, 1930) and Metropolis (1926), 'Homunculus' was the most popular serial in Germany during World War I even influencing the dress of fashionable Berlin. Foenss, a Danish star, is the perfect creature manufactured in a laboratory by Kuehne. Having discovered his origins, that he has no 'soul' and is incapable of love, he revenges himself on mankind, instigating revolutions and becoming a monstrous but beautiful tyrant, relentlessly pursued by his creator-father who seeks to rectify his mistake.

Tales of Hoffmann

This movie, directed by Richard Oswald, is based on the operetta "Les contes de Hoffmann" by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), which is a genial musical potpourri from various short stories and novels by the Prussian writer, composer, painter, lawyer and judge E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). While Hoffmann's literary work was longtime considered to be merely fantastical, it was finally researched, in the last years, according to its metaphysical background. Characteristic for Hoffmann's work is his life-long fight against rationalism and for the revelation of nature morte, culminating mostly in carnival-like scenes anticipating literary techniques only described in the works of Bachtin and Bachelard.

Und wandern sollst du ruhelos …

rich count, who is an avid collector of antiques, buys an antique box. However, he does not know that this artifact is under a terrible, centuries-old curse. Since the purchase, he has been constantly haunted by a ghostly apparition in the form of a medieval knight's wife. One day, the count visits a friend at his castle. When a fire breaks out there, the count discovers the secret of his enchanted box. He discovers an ancient document called "Notes of the Court Jester of the Castle" and reads this document. Now he discovers the reason for the curse.

Schlemihl

A family's newfound wealth causes problem after problem.

Japanese Sacrifice

A friend sacrifices himself, taking the blame for a murder upon himself. A guilty conscience will end up killing the real culprit.