ARTISTS UNDER THE BIG TOP: PERPLEXED
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1968

Leni inherits the family circus after her father is killed while practicing a difficult act. Feeling that small-time carnivals are on their way out, she updates the show by turning it into a "reform circus," which consists of socially relevant entertainment. Unfortunately, it fails to attract customers, and her circus goes bankrupt—twice. The story of Leni and her woes is slight but the strength of Kluge’s film is the complex imagery, with its masterful montages, filmic references, and layers of meaning. In German with English subtitles.

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THE BIG MESS
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1970

The futuristic vision of New German Cinema founder Alexander Kluge, The Big Mess offers a unique and provocative interpretation of sci-fi. In the year 2034, the Kruger star system is dominated by a powerful corporate giant called the Suez Canal Company. Those unable to obtain business licenses of their own eke out a living as rebels or pirates.

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BUNGALOW
Directed by Ulrich Kohler, 2002

A German youth -- more slacker than soldier -- goes AWOL from military service and returns to his parents' summer home. There he falls for his brother's girlfriend, a Danish actress in B-movies. In German with English subtitles.

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EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE
Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1974

Handsome Jeronimo is hired to tutor the rich heiress, Josefa. They fall in love, but the Church forbids their relationship, and Josefa is hidden in a convent. The Church discovers that she is pregnant and sentences her to death by decapitation. Jeronimo tracks her down but is jailed before he can rescue her. When Fate intervenes in the form of a massive earthquake, the two lovers have no idea what is in store for them. In German with English subtitles.

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THE FUTURE OF EMILY
Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1985

Director Helma Sanders-Brahms, who along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog founded the New German Cinema, offers a gripping drama of family relationships of three generations of females. By focusing on the joys and trials of single motherhood, Sanders-Brahms explores the bond between mothers and daughters. In French with English subtitles.

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GERMANY, PALE MOTHER
Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1980

Groundbreaking in its realism, the film is set during World War II and follows newlywed Lene, whose young husband, a soldier, is sent to the front lines. Lene discovers that she is pregnant and is forced to take her child on a journey across the warravaged countryside. In German with English subtitles.

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GERMANY IN AUTUMN
Directed by Alexander Kluge and others, 1978

Produced in response to the kidnapping and murder of a prominent industrialist by a German terrorist group 30 years ago, this film will resonate with today’s audiences who are all too familiar with political terrorism. Germany in Autumn features a series of nonfiction and fiction segments bookended by two funerals—the industrialist’s at the beginning and the terrorists’ at the end. More of an essay than a straightforward documentary, the film captures impressions of this explosive and emotive moment in Germany's history by several directors of the New German Cinema, including Alexander Kluge, Volker Schlondorff, Edgar Reitz, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

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HEIMAT
Directed by Edgar Reitz, 1984

The original Heimat: presented in 1984, the sensation of the Munich, London, and Venice Film Festivals, and a huge hit in France and Germany. Shot over two years, the film features 28 leading performers, 140 speaking roles, and a cast of 5,000 non-professional actors. In German with English subtitles.

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HEIMAT II
Directed by Edgar Reitz, 1994

Pioneering German filmmaker Edgar Reitz follows up his groundbreaking Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany with the astonishing 13-episode, 25-hour saga Heimat 2: Chronicle of a Generation. Beginning in the year 1960, Heimat 2 follows Hermann Simon, who leaves his village of Schabbach to settle in Munich. In German with English subtitles.

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HEIMAT 3:
A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings
Directed by Edgar Reitz, 2004

The continuation of Edgar Reitz's milestone film epic, Heimat 3 takes the story of the Simon Family into the modern era with the same passion and attention to character as the first two series. In German with English subtitles.

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THE HEIMAT TRILOGY
Directed by Edgar Reitz, 1984/1992/2004

Edgar Reitz's monumental three-series portrait of life in the twentieth century is more than entertainment -- it's a cultural event! Heimat, Heimat II, and Heimat 3 tell the story of the village of Schabbach and the Simon Family from 1919 to the new millennium. Heimat chronicles matriarch Maria Simon as she raises her family amidst the tumultuous changes of the Depression, World War II, and the Economic Miracle of the 1950s. Heimat II follows her son Hermann Simon as he makes his way in Munich during the cultural chaos of the politicized 1960s. And, Heimat 3 picks up Hermann's story as he returns to Schabbach after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In German with English subtitles.

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INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES
Directed by Valie Export, 1977

Anna, a photographer living in Vienna, is losing her grip on her sanity just as her lover loses interest in her—or perhaps because of this. Her profound sense of loss and alienation manifests itself in her belief that space aliens are colonizing the minds of her fellow citizens, especially men, which raises the aggression level. The outside world seems and looks disjointed as her inner world falls apart in this experimental narrative in which the lines between outward reality and inner fantasy are blurred.

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KARL MAY
Directed by Hans Jürgen Syberberg, 1974

The second film in Hans Jürgen Syberberg's highly impressionistic German Trilogy, Karl May follows the last years in the life of Germany’s most popular author. May, a prolific and beloved writer, wrote rousing adventure tales set in America's Wild West, which mythologized a rustic lifestyle that appealed to German sensibilities and may have inspired the Nazi Party. In German with English subtitles.

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KLUGE IN THE BEGINNING
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1968-73

Alexander Kluge became the leading advocate and politician of the New German Cinema of the 1960s-70s, and his work was vital to the intellectual underpinning of the movement. This special collection includes four of Kluge's earliest features and six of his shorts. Part-Time Work of a Domestic Slave tells the story of Rosewitha Bronski, a wife and mother, a local abortionist, and a factory worker turned labor activist. Kluge captures her frantic life in a cool, episodic style that makes use of voiceover and inserts to comment on Rosewitha's choices. Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed opens with circus performer Leni Peickert in a quandary after inheriting the family circus. Feeling that small-time carnivals are on their way out, she updates the show by turning it into a "reform circus" consisting of socially relevant entertainment. In The Big Mess, Kluge tackles science fiction, resulting in a vision of space exploration as a frontier of commercial exploitation and consumer fraud. In Willi Tobler and the Decline of the 6th Fleet, Kluge continues to tweak the sci-fi genre with this tale of a man who abandons his family and old way of life to join the 6th Fleet.

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LEA
Directed by Ivan Fila, 1996

After witnessing her father murder her mother, a young Slovak girl named Lea (Lenka Vlasakova) is stricken mute. Her foster parents arrange her marriage to a much older gentleman (Christian Redl) who too suffers a traumatic past. Their relationship seems doomed, but a bond soon grows as they learn more about each other. Also stars Hanna Schygulla and Udo Kier. "A bittersweet fable, the timeless kind...emotionally uplifting" (Globe and Mail). In German and Slovak with English subtitles.

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A LITTLE BIT OF FREEDOM
Directed by Yuksel Yavuz, 2003

Baran, a Kurdish teen from Turkey, makes bicycle deliveries for a kebab shop while trying to outwit the authorities who have refused him political asylum. He strikes up a friendship with another outsider, an illegal African immigrant with dyed blond hair who deals drugs to get by. Trouble begins after Baran loses his low profile because the kebab-stand owner's daughter sets her sites on him. In German, Kurdish, and Turkish with English subtitles.

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LUDWIG: REQUIEM FOR A VIRGIN KING
Directed by Hans Jürgen Syberberg, 1972

From the creative mind of Hans Jurgen Syberberg comes this highly imaginative interpretation of the life of mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria. In the mode of Syberberg's unique masterpiece Our Hitler, the film consists of a series of sketches and tableaux with cabaret music, Oscar-nominated costumes, and colorful characters. In German with English subtitles.

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MENSCHENFRAUEN
Directed by Valie Export, 1980

Journalist Franz S. dallies with four women who think only they are the apple of Franz's eye. Each girlfriend represents a different female archetype: Petra is a sweet kindergarten nurse; Gertrud is an intelligent teacher; Elisabeth the barmaid is always ready for a party; and poor Anna is the long-suffering wife. Eventually, the women want more from life than Franz's attention and use different means to undermine his game.

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MY HEART IS MINE ALONE
Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1997

The story of the real-life love affair between Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schueler and Nazi poet Gottfried Benn is told largely through their poetry in this experimental drama scored with improvised music. The poets' relationship epitomizes the idea of the "ill-fated romance" as Lasker-Schueler is forced to leave the country because of the very ideology that Benn believes in. She drifts from country to country until she lands in Jerusalem to stay, while he realizes his mistake when the Nazis condemn his artistic school as degenerate. In German with optional English subtitles.

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NO MERCY, NO FUTURE
Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1981

Rita G., who comes from a family of wealthy socialites, wanders the streets of Berlin along the Wall in search of God. She hopes to find what she's looking for in the outcasts of the city - the humiliated, the aged, the immigrants, the exiles, and the handicapped. Rita G. expresses her love of humanity and her religious spirit in unusual ways, which often lands her in a psychiatric clinic. In German with English subtitles.

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OTOMO
Directed by Frieder Schlaich, 1999

On a hot August day in 1989, West African political refugee Frederic Otomo is stopped on a public subway by an intolerant conductor. He panics, breaks loose, and escapes. Hours later, when confronted by police, he stabs five officers before being gunned down by one of them. In German with English subtitles.

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OUR HITLER
Directed by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, 1977

In a series of 22 tableaux set on a soundstage, Syberberg makes use of puppets, props, a thundering Wagnerian soundtrack, and rear-screen projection to evoke Nazi Germany, the origins of the Third Reich, and the disturbing aftermath that followed. Neither a feature film nor a conventional documentary, Our Hitler is a seven-and-a-half-hour fever dream on coming to terms with Nazism. In German with English subtitles.

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PALERMO OR WOLFSBURG
Directed by Werner Schroeter, 1980

Young Nicola leaves his hometown of Palermo, Sicily, with its bad economy and high unemployment, for a better life in Wolfsburg, Germany. He lands a good job at the VW plant, but without the support of his family and community, he struggles to integrate into German society. Nicola falls for a pretty local girl, but happiness eludes him as he becomes entangled in a situation that quickly spins out of control. In German with English subtitles.

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PART-TIME WORK OF A DOMESTIC SLAVE
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1973

The most significant work by Alexander Kluge, architect of the New German Cinema, features his sister Alexandra as Rosewitha Bronski, a woman trying to make her way in a hostile society. Rosewitha is a wife and mother, a local abortionist, and a factory worker turned labor activist. In German with English subtitles.

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THE PATRIOT
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1979

Director Alexander Kluge begins The Patriot where he left off in Germany in Autumn, with teacher Gabi Teichert digging into the ground of a snow-covered landscape. The image is a metaphor for digging into the past of German history, a recurring theme for director Alexander Kluge. Gabi, played by Hannelore Hoger, uncovers the skeleton of a dead soldier while digging, and his disconnected knee begins to speak to her. "The Knee" -- an actual anatomical joint -- had belonged to Private Wieland, a soldier killed at Stalingrad during WWII. The Knee narrates the film, which is a disparate collection of documentary footage, fairy-tale illustrations, and fictional scenes with actors. Like a knee joins two parts of the leg, so the Knee in the film connects the various types of footage with its narration. In German with English subtitles.

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PAUL BOWLES: HALF MOON
Directed by Frieder Schlaich & Irene von Alberti, 1995

The exotic world of expatriate American writer Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky), artistic colleague of Beat poets and writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, is brought to the screen in this beautifully photographed anthology based on three of his short stories. In Arabic, Berber and English with English subtitles.

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THE PRACTICE OF LOVE
Directed by Valie Export, 1984

With its plot twists and experimental sensibility, The Practice of Love was a stunning directorial debut for avant-garde filmmaker Valie Export. Judith, an investigative journalist, begins to unravel a murder mystery that implicates one of her current lovers. When she checks out a peep-show business on the seedy side of Hamburg as part of the investigation, she runs into a former boyfriend who used to be a psychiatrist but is now an arms dealer. Judith is lured back into his fold, cheating on her current lovers, one of whom is also a shrink. Despite her profession, or perhaps because of it, Judith tends to blend fantasy and reality, so small wonder she is attracted to psychiatrists. But, two shrinks and a murder prove more than Judith can handle. In German with English subtitles.

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THE FILMS OF HELMA SANDERS-BRAHMS
1974-1997

From director Helma Sanders-Brahms, who along with directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog established the New German Cinema, come six gripping dramas about the struggle of women in a tumultuous world. Earthquake in Chile is a fable of forbidden love and political oppression; The Future of Emily tells the story of three generations of females, exploring the bond between mothers and daughters; Germany, Pale Mother depicts the realities of a group of brave, self-sufficient women who live in the ruins of bombedout buildings during WWII and later rebuild their houses and apartment blocks; My Heart Is Mine Alone tells the story of the real-life love affair between Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schueler and Nazi poet Gottfried Benn; No Mercy, No Future offers a stunning portrait of a woman in psychological turmoil; Under the Pavement Lies the Strand follows a politically motivated couple who struggle in the calm that follows the student rebellions and demonstrations of the late 1960s.

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STRONGMAN FERDINAND
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1976

Tense and taut, Strongman Ferdinand remains director Alexander Kluge’s most accessible film. Kluge, a master at political drama, chooses a realistic mode and a straightforward story to create a timely story of terrorism. Heinz Schubert stars as Ferdinand Rieche, the head of security at an important chemical firm who becomes obsessed with finding security risks. He fabricates threats to demonstrate his expertise and to suggest that he is indispensible, ultimately leading to harsher tactics and tighter enforcement. When the company director questions the need for such controls, Rieche considers the director a risk. In German with English subtitles.

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UNDER THE PAVEMENT LIES THE STRAND
Directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1974

Renowned German director Helma Sanders-Brahms made her feature-film debut with this potent drama about a politically motivated couple who struggle in the calm that followed the student rebellions and demonstrations of the late 1960s. The heady days of 1968 brought sweeping socio-political changes in Germany, but the subsequent years have been a letdown for Grischa and Heinrich, who are starring in a successful play on the Berlin stage. In German with optional English subtitles.

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WILLI TOBLER AND THE DECLINE OF THE 6th FLEET
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1972

During the Galactic Citizen's War, Willi Tobler—played by actor and intellectual Alfred Edel— decides to rid himself of his material possessions and responsibilities after his sector is bombarded. He not only leaves behind his belongings but also his wife and child as he volunteers to be the public relations man for the Chief Admiral of the 6th Fleet; however, his new life does not give him the security he wanted. With its intentionally low-budget look and offbeat intertitles, Willi Tobler evokes the hand-crafted effects of Georges Méliès. Combined with a dependence on improvisation, the film represents Kluge's radical experimentation with a popular genre.

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YESTERDAY GIRL
Directed by Alexander Kluge, 1966

Yesterday Girl, the stunning feature debut by Alexander Kluge, launched the movement know as the New German Cinema after the film’s triumph at the Venice International Film Festival when the press hailed it as the rebirth of German film. In German with English subtitles.

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