Margarethe von Trotta

A biopic of Hannah Arendt, the influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist. "Arendt's reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker -- controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmann and the Jewish councils -- introduced her now-famous concept of the 'Banality of Evil.' Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving a narrative that spans three countries, [director] von Trotta...turns the often-invisible...

Germany's Third Reich made 1,200 feature films. According to experts, some 100 of these were blatant Nazi propaganda. More than 40 of these films remain under lock and key. Director Felix interviews German film historians, archivists and filmgoers in an investigation of the power, and potential danger, of cinema when used for ideological purposes. Moeller shows how contentious these films remain, and how propaganda can retain its punch when presented...

"Volker Schlöndorff transported Bertolt Brecht's 1918 debut play to contemporary West Germany for this vicious experiment in adaptation, seldom seen for nearly half a century. Oozing with brutish charisma, Rainer Werner Fassbinder embodies the eponymous anarchist poet, who feels that bourgeois society has rejected him and sets off on a schnapps-soaked rampage. Hewing faithfully to Brecht's text, Schlöndorff juxtaposes the theatricality of the prose...