Edition Filmmuseum

Facts & fakes with Peter Berling, Erich Komrowksy, Hermes Phettberg, Helge Schneider, Georg Schramm and Lilo Wanders. Freedom for the Consonants! means a radical overhaul of the spelling reform. Borderline Cases of Damage Control deals with the insurance cover of at-risk aeroplanes. And from present-day practice: Car racing in the framework of the Olympics, the problems relating to the protection of US presidents, German troops in the Himalayas, security duties for the G8 summit, resistance work against the German occupiers in Poland and finally, Christoph Schlingensief's version of 'Hamlet' and Christian Stueckl's interpretation of 'Peer Gynt'. "It is a fact that fantasy exists. However, it is fantasy that pure facts exist."

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.

High on Work: We have left a heroic and post-heroic industrial age behind us. Farewell to an era when work was still abundant. Yet the adage still holds: Only work makes life real (Marx). The turbulent zones of globalization, in the cafeteria of Brecht's Theater, Helge Schneider as an unemployed woman in Spain, "working to pieces" in the concentration camps. Farewell to the safe side of life: Experiences with core activities of our time, for example skyscrapers or Chernobyl. Experts from the fire department and paramedics, engineers, and scientists tell their stories. With Durs Grünbein, Peter Berling, Igor Kostin, Victor Popov, Nikolai Tarakanov, Igor Jassenjawski, Rosemarie Tietze, and Oxana Pentak.

The Eiffel Tower, King Kong, and the White Woman: A typical magazine from the start-up period of the independent television window in private broadcast TV. All traditional possibilities for expression in film and many types of television are experimented with: Editing, collage, multiple exposure, narrative interlacing. Headless Man: Ballads and murder ballads are elemental narrative styles that are the precursor to the cinema. They relate destinies and emotion. But how do you tell about the construction work at dusk in the ruins of the Twin Towers or about Amok? Additional texts by Alexander Kluge about his work at television in the booklet and as ROM features.

The last films for cinema by Alexander Kluge. Both tell about a dozen stories which complement one another by creating a context. The Blind Director: A young doctor feels that she is redundant. People hurry around. A family sits in front of the computer as if it were a fire in the hearth. A kindergarten teacher is supposed to turn a child over to its legal guardians. The blind director. The present becomes inflammed. Without prior events, the future and particularly a sense of the possible, there is no reality. Miscellaneous News are on the last page of the newspapers. With little oversight from editorial offices but with great emotional fuel. The 2-disc DVD also offers a talk with Alexander Kluge and Jean-Luc Godard as well as new one-minute films by Alexander Kluge.

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.

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.

Germany in Autumn: Germany in 1977, the Red Army Faction (RAF), Mogadishu, the prison in Stammheim, the murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer. A film collage capturing the emotions of these events. "The closer you look at a word, the further it looks back: Germany." The Patriot: The story of Gabi Teichert (played by Hannelore Hoger) who had already begun to dig around in search of the roots of German history in Germany in Autumn. In daily school life, at the party convention of the Social Democrats (SPD), on the Day of Penance and during Advent: She remains stalwart on her quest for a republic, for which the trouble is worth it. The 2-disc DVD also offers short films by Alexander Kluge and his book "The Patriot".

In Danger and Deep Distress, the Middleway Spells Certain Death: A female prostitute and thief makes her way through the city with a female GDR spy. Frankfurt, 1974. It's Carnival time. At the same time police forcibly evict students from occupied buildings). Strong-Man Ferdinand: A fundamentalist of the security forces. The chief of plant security Rieche (played by Heinz Schubert) has more proficiency in his job than his superiors permit. He needs to somehow demonstrate that his position is valuable. "The most dangerous opponents of a system are its protectors." The 2-disc DVD also offers short films, texts and short stories by Alexander Kluge.