German films

There are 80,000 operas. All these operas constitue a single great score which has faithfully accompanied the errors and achievements of bourgeois society for 400 years. The consistent application of cinematic methods the "moving details" of opera leads to surprises. In the opera house, for example, no one sees the great finales of Verdi side-by-side in one evening. No one necessarily discovers that the Grand Inquisitor in "Don Carlos" is given the same music as the murderer in "Rigoletto". Is it possible that a new genre could be born out of the encounter of opera and film? A street map of music?

War and Peace: At the peak of the Cold War, the short-range missile crisis, neutron bombs could have potentially annihilated Central Europe. 300,000 protesters in Bonn. German Chancellor Schmidt resigns. Why make a film collage about war? "Nothing is more discouraging than not being able to see through a game on which your life hinges." The Candidate: Another film collage motivated by the election campaign for the German Bundestag in 1981, where Franz Josef Strauss sought the office of the chancellor. An institution in politics falters time and again because of the reality of the Federal Republic. "Getting to a place in the sun is not easy because once you are there, it has already set." The 2-disc DVD also offers two short films by Alexander Kluge, texts by Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt and the unpublished screenplay "Eyes from a Different Country" which was never filmed.

War Is the End Of All Plans: War is characterized by the fact that it breaches all barriers. In his book, "On War", Carl von Clausewitz describes how war dreams of its own "omnipotence". Actually, it can never be omnipotent because it is full of all the probabilities we find in real life which continually disrupt its almighty power. In the end, it is just those probabilities which devour the power of war itself but which are as ill-suited to put an end to war as a peace agreement. Where We Come From, Where We Go To: Mankind has not been wiped out by wars and disasters ("against all odds") thanks to its ancient roots. It can be assumed that, without their knowing, human beings bear a treasure endowed upon them by evolution which protects them from demise (as a guardian angel would). Evolution, which begins in outer space, is too diverse to be sabotaged by the whims of the present.

"Love and hate, how easily they break". Love stories are fundamental stories. In this realm of experience, we can test our own power of judgment. It is possible to judge political matters, which are not similarly open to intimate examination, through our knowledge of love stories. The death of Lucretia toppled the Roman monarchy. When a father is unable to protect his daughter Virgilia from a corrupt judge, he kills her. The secretive kiss of death is an instrument of power, a means to an end, for every Eastern network of agents. To be a laborer of love is the concern of a "grunt", a skillful prostitute, who provides an orderly erotic system on the oil rigs in the North Sea.

The 2-disc DVD presents the two most beautiful films shot in Germany by Max Ophüls in restored versions: The wonderful adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's famous play Liebelei was the last film before Ophüls was forced to emigrate. The German version of the international co-production Lola Montez, shot in color and CinemaScope, remained his last movie. Additionally the DVD set features Martina Müller's highly praised documentary Max Ophüls - Den schönen guten Waren and never before published documents and out-of-print books in the extensive ROM section.

In his pictures, films, collages and installations, the painter and filmmakerLutz Dammbeck seeks a synthesis of expressive means from the genres of film and fine art. His work to date identifies him as one of the key representatives of independent film and media art in the former GDR and as a unique, outstanding phenomenon within modern contemporary art. The 2-disc DVD presents for the first time all his animation films and media works, including an extensive booklet with essays about Lutz Dammbeck's filmic work and a lot of documents about his fight with state authorities as ROM features.

2-disc DVD: The Power of Emotion explains that emotion isn't to be confused with sentimentality. Emotion is ancient and more powerful than any art form. The film looks at young couples who run into difficulties as they try to translate their experiences of love into clear decision-making. A woman who has shot her husband provides a judge with a puzzle. Those who love can bring the dead back to life by means of co-operation. That's the focus of the opera, "The Power Plant of Emotions" and the "Opera of the 20th Century" cinema. The Serpentine Gallery Program is a treasure trove of TV films. "He who hopes, dies singing" and other true stories.

"Images from the late 1980s in East Germany to the immediate present, 2008, in Germany. What remains besieges my head. In it, all these images come together again as something different from what they were originally intended to be. They remain in motion. They become history. The material remains incomplete. It is what I picked up, what remained important to me. My picture." (Thomas Heise) The DVD set also offers rare early works by Thomas Heise, unique and authentic images of everyday's life in the GDR, immediately banned in the GDR.

"Film should not be misused for non-filmic messages": Wilhelm and Birgit Hein examine in their films theprocess of reproduction and the film material itself. Rohfilm shows the destruction of the common "film image" and was described by Stephen Dwoskin as a "visual bombing" of shreds, fragments, dirt and leftovers of film editing. Reproductions dissolves photos in greys, 625 films a negative "snow" TV image with different speeds, in Portraits photos are changed by the development and reproduction processes. Materialfilme consists of film starting and ending leaders, the elements of every film that normally are not seen on the screen. W+B Hein's underground film classics deal with the unexplored potentials of the film material which starts to disappear in the digital world.

Two exceptional documentaries about Bernhard Kimmel, who was in the headline of German newspaper's in the 1950s because of spectacular robberies and burglaries. In 1961 he was sent to prison for 14 years, but released already in 1970. His attempt to live virtuously fails. During a burglary he kills a policeman and in 1982, he is sentenced to life imprisonment. Peter Fleischmann describes a life between Robin Hood fame and prison which also reflects a forgotten chapter of German postwar history.