Christian Beetz

Annual awarding of the Grimme Awards.

It's 2014 and tech billionaire Elon Musk unveils his plans for a self-driving car in front of an enthusiastic audience. What consumers don't know is that Tesla's "autopilot" function is far from road-ready, and new owners are being used to improve the software by providing their data. A fatal accident in Florida triggers a protracted lawsuit to hold Tesla accountable. And it's not the only incident. Shocking footage from dashcams and security cameras shows the ruthlessness of Tesla cars suddenly braking or accelerating—and the crashes that follow. Then, an employee leaks thousands of documents containing complaints from users.

In 2019, the leakage of messages exchanged by authorities in Brazil undermines the credibility of Operation Lava Jato. A group of journalists follows the unfolding of the case, in a sequence of crises that puts Brazilian democracy at risk.

A documentary about Roland Emmerich, the most commercially successful German director in Hollywood, released on the occasion of his 70th birthday. It offers rare insights into his professional career and private life, covering his rise as a blockbuster filmmaker, his personal relationships, family background, and life in the US and Europe. The film also looks back at his early work, including his 1984 directorial debut The Noah’s Ark Principle, and reflects on themes such as dreams, identity, politics, and the rules of the film industry.

No synopsis available yet.

Mali's Music defines the country's cultural identity. Radical Islamists are threatening the musicians. Together with the stars of Malian Global Pop - Fatoumata Diawara, Bassekou Kouyaté Master Soumy and Ahmed Ag Kaedi - we embark on a musical journey to Mali's agitated heart. Can their music reconcile the country?

Annual awarding of the Grimme Awards.

It's 2014 and tech billionaire Elon Musk unveils his plans for a self-driving car in front of an enthusiastic audience. What consumers don't know is that Tesla's "autopilot" function is far from road-ready, and new owners are being used to improve the software by providing their data. A fatal accident in Florida triggers a protracted lawsuit to hold Tesla accountable. And it's not the only incident. Shocking footage from dashcams and security cameras shows the ruthlessness of Tesla cars suddenly braking or accelerating—and the crashes that follow. Then, an employee leaks thousands of documents containing complaints from users.

It's 2014 and tech billionaire Elon Musk unveils his plans for a self-driving car in front of an enthusiastic audience. What consumers don't know is that Tesla's "autopilot" function is far from road-ready, and new owners are being used to improve the software by providing their data. A fatal accident in Florida triggers a protracted lawsuit to hold Tesla accountable. And it's not the only incident. Shocking footage from dashcams and security cameras shows the ruthlessness of Tesla cars suddenly braking or accelerating—and the crashes that follow. Then, an employee leaks thousands of documents containing complaints from users.

In 2019, the leakage of messages exchanged by authorities in Brazil undermines the credibility of Operation Lava Jato. A group of journalists follows the unfolding of the case, in a sequence of crises that puts Brazilian democracy at risk.

A documentary about Roland Emmerich, the most commercially successful German director in Hollywood, released on the occasion of his 70th birthday. It offers rare insights into his professional career and private life, covering his rise as a blockbuster filmmaker, his personal relationships, family background, and life in the US and Europe. The film also looks back at his early work, including his 1984 directorial debut The Noah’s Ark Principle, and reflects on themes such as dreams, identity, politics, and the rules of the film industry.

No synopsis available yet.

Mali's Music defines the country's cultural identity. Radical Islamists are threatening the musicians. Together with the stars of Malian Global Pop - Fatoumata Diawara, Bassekou Kouyaté Master Soumy and Ahmed Ag Kaedi - we embark on a musical journey to Mali's agitated heart. Can their music reconcile the country?

In Febuary 2026 the world's best ice hockey players will descend on Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo for the most eagerly awaited XXV Olympic Winter Games in living memory. For German national coach Harry Kreis the twelve months leading up to the final nominations of his olympic squad are equally exciting and stressful - a period plagued with difficult decisions and sleepless nights. A young team falters at the world championships, struggling under the pressure of the big stage, while older statesmen wait in the wings ready to replace them. The start of the domestic season offers a chance to impress the head coach, but the intense schedule heightens the risk of injury. Ultimately it's up to coach Kreis to make the final cut: who will play and who will be left at home?

Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product.

Seele Brennt is a documentary on the band. It is also known as: 'Hor mit Schmerzen'. It was televised on ZDF / arte celebrating 20 years Neubauten. It has many previously unseen-unheard footage and recording

A cruise ship and 3,000 men – it is a universe without heteros and women that usually remains a mystery to the outside world. Once a year the Dream Boat sets sail for a cruise exclusively for gay men where most passengers are united by the wish to live life authentically as themselves in a protected place.

Digital Dissidents are the warriors of the digital age: republican patriots, radical anarchists and cyber-hippies fighting side by side for transparency and privacy in a digital world which is permeating our lives more and more. For this they are imprisoned, live in exile, and have lost careers and families. Why do they do it? What motivates them? What are they warning us about?

The bleakness of Antarctica is a fallacy. The ice continent is full of life and offers a biodiversity of which only about two percent are known. Much of it is under water and could determine the future of human beings. When the northern lights cover the ice landscape in summer, the animals in the Antarctic are in a paradisiacal state. Whales blow their fountains in the sky, penguins fly like small rockets into the water, seals dive for crabs under the glittering ice floes. From the bay of the Ross Sea to the ice shelf, from the huge penguin colonies to steaming volcanoes, a life in rhythm with the ice. But the consequences of climate change are slowly becoming apparent here too. While some species are dying, others are spreading. They could bring new viruses and bacteria with them, and new dangers for humans too. The structure of nature has gotten off course. How many generations will still be able to experience the magic of Antarctica?

Every year during summer one of the biggest battles of mankind takes place amidst the hillsides of middle earth. Knights, elves and magicians are fighting orcs and the dark powers. What looks like a scene from Lord of the Rings actually takes place in a field in Germany, where thousands of role players meet to plunge into a fantasy world of their own. More than 250.000 people in Germany regularly make this transition. The documentary accompanies five role players in their daily lives and their parallel ones. Where does their yearning for a shared world of fantasy come from? What does this reveal about our hectic, technological life? Sunday warriors is a film about the passion for playing and the ambition to exceed your limits.

Mud, power outages, heavy rain – and yet Wacken draws crowds every year. For over three decades, Wacken Open Air has stood for friendship, perseverance, and a tight-knit community. With metal legends such as Kreator, Doro Pesch, and Motörhead, Wacken turns into an exceptional event – and a home away from home for fans from all over the world.

German avant-garde band Einsturzende Neubauten celebrates two decades together with this absorbing documentary charting their career highs and lows. Best known for their experimental sound and homemade instruments, Einsturzende Neubauten is one of the most inventive groups to emerge from Deutschland. The film includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the band members, who discuss their musical influences and philosophies.

Zarah Leander was one of the greatest film stars of the Third Reich. Adored by the Nazis, she rose to become the highest-paid female film star of National Socialism. To this day, she remains inextricably linked to our collective memory, reviled as a "Nazi siren" but also loved unconditionally. At the same time, there are files in Sweden that claim she was a Russian spy. Extremely contradictory rumors that continue to shape the myth of Zarah Leander to this day. She herself described herself as completely apolitical. "The Zarah Leander File" delves into the life of the Swedish film diva and asks: Who was the woman behind the mysterious gaze, the frivolous songs, and the pompous gestures? Who was "Leander" really?

The story of how Aurora Mardiganian (1901-94), a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (1915-17), became a Hollywood silent film star.

After 30 years of conspiracy theories and myth making, this film uncovers the story of the CIA's most extensive clandestine operation in the history of modern warfare: The Secret War in Laos, which was conducted alongside the Vietnam War from 1964 -1973. While the world's attention was caught by the conflict in Vietnam, the CIA built the busiest military airport in the world in neighboring and neutral Laos and recruited humanitarian aid personnel, Special Forces agents and civilian pilots to undertake what would become the most effective operation of counterinsurgency warfare. As the conflict in Vietnam grew, the objective in Laos changed from a cost effective low-key involvement to save the country from becoming communist into an all-out air war to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and bomb Laos back into the Stone Age that it had never really left in the first place. Conventional bombs equivalent to the destructive power of 20 Hiroshima-type weapons fell on Laos each year - 2 million tons

The Sabra and Shatila quarters are part of the Lebanese capital Beirut, which was rocked by a violent explosion in 2020, plunging Lebanon into the worst economic crisis in its history. In the poor districts, once provisionally built for Palestinian refugees, the residents live at a subsistence level without papers, without civil rights, without prospects. The documentary weaves the stories of the three families Kujeyje, Daher, Abeed and that of the young father Aboodi Ziani into a searing portrait of life in a city on the brink. The filmmakers accompanied their protagonists over a four-year period between 2018 and 2022 and show how the poorest of the poor firsthand felt the consequences of the gigantic port explosion, Lebanon's historic economic crisis, the corona pandemic and the ever-growing refugee quota. But unmistakable qualities like resilience and hope allow them to survive.

In times of rampant populism and increasing distrust of the elite, the filmmaker accompanies the 81-year-old founder of the controversial World Economic Forum over the period of one year in his efforts to implement his leitmotif: to improve the state of the world. Can the WEF contribute to solving global problems? Or is it rather an integral part of the problem?

A great symbiosis of music and documentary film which creates a true-to-life impression of the sense of community what singing in a choir means. Their film finds humanity in art and magic in music. A moving and immersive cinematic experience of great warmth, emphasizing the unstoppable power of community in times of isolation and understanding how music brings people together.

Along with Can and Kraftwerk Einstuerzende Neubauten are amongst the most important bands to come out of late 20th Century Germany. 'Listen With Pain' is a documentary celebration of their twentieth birthday shot by long time fans and filmmakers Christian Beetz and Birgit Herdilitchke. A candid investigation of the strange often controversial career of Einstuerzende Neubauten the band reveal much about their inspirations and interpersonal relationships creating a wholly satisfying and highly entertaining portrait of a unique and highly innovative phenomenon.

Along with Can and Kraftwerk Einstuerzende Neubauten are amongst the most important bands to come out of late 20th Century Germany. 'Listen With Pain' is a documentary celebration of their twentieth birthday shot by long time fans and filmmakers Christian Beetz and Birgit Herdilitchke. A candid investigation of the strange often controversial career of Einstuerzende Neubauten the band reveal much about their inspirations and interpersonal relationships creating a wholly satisfying and highly entertaining portrait of a unique and highly innovative phenomenon.

Along with Can and Kraftwerk Einstuerzende Neubauten are amongst the most important bands to come out of late 20th Century Germany. 'Listen With Pain' is a documentary celebration of their twentieth birthday shot by long time fans and filmmakers Christian Beetz and Birgit Herdilitchke. A candid investigation of the strange often controversial career of Einstuerzende Neubauten the band reveal much about their inspirations and interpersonal relationships creating a wholly satisfying and highly entertaining portrait of a unique and highly innovative phenomenon.

This is the portrait of a young accordionist in the 21st century. It is a film about the joys of life and survival strategies on the forgotten stage of Macedonia. This is the story of a 17-year-old accordionist, who is searching for her place in the world. Corridors are her practice rooms – at home and at school. The whole year she practices diligently and passionately on her old Supita accordion. Obviously, she wasn’t given the name Emilija, meaning „the keen one“, for nothing. She wants to become a professional accordionist, but for this she needs a new accordion. Something that is unattainable for her poor family. But the family‘s poverty also releases their creativity and Imagination. Her father, an art teacher, begins to work as a bodyguard, while Emilija‘s mother illegally sells sweets in the family garden. This is a film about becoming an adult in one of Europe‘s more desolate corners.

In a mixture of feature film, music documentary and animated comics, historical facts are retold, analyzed and interpreted in modern settings. Ludwig van Beethoven, played by Lars Eidinger, becomes a contemporary of today's audience. Quick-tempered, irascible, curmudgeonly - that is the common image of Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer with the wild lion's mane. But there is also another Beethoven - young, seductive, spirited and, above all, combative.

In a mixture of feature film, music documentary and animated comics, historical facts are retold, analyzed and interpreted in modern settings. Ludwig van Beethoven, played by Lars Eidinger, becomes a contemporary of today's audience. Quick-tempered, irascible, curmudgeonly - that is the common image of Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer with the wild lion's mane. But there is also another Beethoven - young, seductive, spirited and, above all, combative.

As pro-democracy activists and armed police battle in the streets of Hong Kong, ordinary citizens are choosing sides. Historically an outlier of both western and Chinese power, Hong Kong wields its own economic force, affording the city and its people a spirit of independence that has now erupted into clouds of tear gas. Filmmaker Bing Zhou uses a nimble camera to follow a group of protagonists—two opposing political candidates, a tea shop owner, a cab driver, a police officer, a paramedic—on two separate days of conflict. On September 21, 2019, protestors from three districts join forces, resulting in unprecedented violence. Just 10 days later on October 1, the National Day of the People’s Republic of China, previously undecided onlookers show their stripes. Thoughts transform into action in this demonstration of how mercurial and personal Hong Kong’s politics have become.

Kleist's death at Wannsee - a spectacular case that has disturbed and fascinated posterity to this day. The German poet is found shot - what does that mean? What exactly happened on the afternoon of November 21, 1811 at Kleiner Wannsee? What do you know about the woman who died with him?

Every year, tens of thousands of Israeli schoolchildren embark on a traditional school trip to central sites of the Holocaust. They share their impressions of concentration camps, mass graves and ghettos on YouTube. As a compilation consisting entirely of these video diaries, "#Uploading_Holocaust" shows the so-called "Journey to Poland" as an initiation rite that wants the Jewish youth to be part of an identity-forming experience of suffering.

In his film "Between Madness and Art" director Christian Beetz takes the viewer on a voyage of discovery through the archives of the Prinzhorn Collection. The world's most important collection of pictorial works by psychiatric patients has had a lasting influence on psychiatric and therapeutic practice since its creation in the early 1920s. Modernist art, in particular Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin, Max Ernst and with him the Surrealist movement, also became enthusiastic about the works of "Insane Art". But the film does not remain solely in the historical reappraisal, but takes a step into the present. It accompanies two mentally ill patient-artists and formulates the central question of the current definition of art and illness.

This film accompanies five children of the young ensemble of the Friedrichstadt-Palast during the creation of the new children's play from the castings to the rehearsals to the grand premiere evening in front of 2,000 spectators.