Barbara Sukowa

The film presents the little-known story of the 20,000 European Jews who fled to Shanghai between late 1937 and 1941. After 1939, Shanghai was the last and only resort to find safe haven from the Nazis, though not that safe either, as the film shows. This was due to Shanghai's status as a free port not requiring entry papers, and the relative tolerance of the Japanese occupiers, who, far from being saviors, resisted their Grand Ally's (Germany) demand to exterminate the Jews, and even prevented the actions of the Nazi "Butcher of Warsaw" who was assigned to liquidate the Shanghai Jews. After the Communist takeover of China, all traces of the Jews' existence, including a Jewish cemetery with 2,000 graves, were razed. The Jews passage through Shanghai is revealed, and preserved through four survivors (Fred Fields now of Miami, Ernest and Illo Heppner, and Siegmar Simon), and an incredible collage of rare film footage assembled by Joan Grossman and Paul Rosdy who wrote, edited, directed and produced the documentary. —Guy33134 of Miami

The Port of Last Resort

The Port of Last Resort (1998)

Volker Bruch

Rocca is an 11 year old girl whose mother died in childbirth. She has been living with her father, an astronaut on the ISS, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where instead of regular schooling she has been experiencing much of the astronaut training program, giving her maturity and self-confidence.
She is sent to Hamburg to live with her maternal grandmother who still resents her for the death of her mother, and to attend fifth grade in regular school. When both pilots and most of the passengers on her flight to Hamburg are stricken with food poisoning, she is able to land the plane, but leaves before her identity is known.
She moves in with her grandmother, but unfortunately when she takes in an injured squirrel to nurse back to health, it inadvertently results in her grandmother becoming hospitalized, causing the Child Welfare administration to become concerned about her situation living alone. When she visits the hospital, her grandmother becomes angry and tells her she is just bad luck for everyone.
Meanwhile, Rocca befriends some of the local homeless and becomes concerned about their treatment by society; she also befriends the outcasts in her class and becomes concerned about how they are bullied. Her innate resilience and resourcefulness allow her to come up with a plan to help these disadvantaged groups by identifying herself as the mystery pilot who saved the plane, leveraging the media attention that brings into becoming an internet influencer, and using that platform to urge people to be kinder and more generous. Her grandmother's heart is touched by this and the two are reconciled.

Rocca Changes the World

Rocca Changes the World (2019)

Léa Drucker

Nina and Madeleine, two retired women, are secretly deeply in love for decades. From everybody's point of view, including Madeleine's family, they are simply neighbors living on the top floor of their building. They come and go between their two apartments, sharing the tender delights of everyday life together. Until the day their relationship is turned upside down by an unexpected event leading Madeleine's daughter to slowly unveil the truth about them. —Paprika Films

Two of Us

Two of Us (2019)

Sam Shepard

Julie Delpy

Deborra-Lee Furness

Walter Faber has survived a crash with an airplane. His next trip is by ship. On board this ship he meets the enchanting Sabeth and they have a passionate love affair. Together they travel to her home in Greece, but the rational Faber doesn't know what fate has in mind for him for past doings.

Homo Faber

Homo Faber (1991)

Max von Sydow

Lars von Trier

Udo Kier

An American of German descent arrives in post-war Germany 1945. His uncle gets him a job on the Zentropa train line as a sleeping car conductor. The American's wish is to be neutral to the ongoing purges of loyalists by the Allied forces and do what he can to help a hurting country, but he finds himself being used by both the Americans and the influential family that owns the railroad. After falling in love with the railroad magnate's daughter, he finds that he can't remain neutral and must make some difficult choices. —Ed Sutton

Europa

Europa (1991)

Robert Finster

Lenn Kudrjawizki

Tómas Lemarquis

In 1936, Stefan Zweig, the illustrious author of " 24 Hours of a Woman's Life" and "Letter from an Unknown Woman", leaves Austria for South America. Being Jewish and hating the inhumanity that prevails in Germany while threatening his native country, he has decided to escape the specter of Nazism. Brazil is his chosen country. He is immediately hailed at Rio de Janeiro's Jockey Club by the local jet set. But whereas expect him to take sides and to make a statement against Hitler and his clique, Zweig refuses to renounce his humanity and to indulge in over-simplification: he just cannot condemn Germany and its people. On the other hand, the great writer literally falls in love with Brazil and undertakes the writing of a new book about the country. Accompanied by Lotte, his second wife he explores different regions, including the most remote ones...

Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe

Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016)

Jeremy Irons

Ian Richardson

John Lone

During the Cultural Revolution in China in the mid-1960s, a French diplomat falls in love with a singer in the Beijing Opera. Interwoven with allusions to the Puccini opera "Madama Butterfly", a story of love and betrayal unfolds. —Michael C. Berch

M. Butterfly (1993)

M. Butterfly (1993) (1993)

Christine Kaufmann

Armin Mueller-Stahl

Ten years after the war, West Germany's market economy is booming. Into an unnamed city that's rife with corruption comes a new building commissioner, Herr von Bohm, committed to progress but also upright. He's smitten by Marie-Louise, a single mother who's his landlady's daughter. Von Bohm does not realize she is also Lola, a singer at a bordello and the mistress of Schuckert, a local builder whose profits depend on von Bohm's projects. When von Bohm discovers Marie-Louise's real vocation and looks closely at Schuckert's work, will this social satire play out as a remake of "Blue Angel," a visit of Chekhov to West Germany, or an update of Jean Renoir's "Rules of the Game"?

Lola

Lola (1981)

Janet McTeer

Nicholas Woodeson

Julia Jentsch

In 1961, the noted German-American philosopher of Jewish origin, Hannah Arendt, gets to report on the trial of the notorious Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann. While observing the legal proceedings, Arendt concludes that Eichmann was not a monster, but an ordinary man who had thoughtlessly buried his conscience through his obedience to the Nazi regime and its ideology. Arendt's expansion of this idea, presented in her articles for 'The New Yorker', would create her concept of 'the banality of evil' that she thought even sucked in some Jewish leaders of the era into unwittingly participating in the Holocaust. The result is a bitter public controversy in which Arendt is accused of blaming the Holocaust's victims. Now that strong willed intellectual is forced to defend her ideas in a struggle that will exact a heavy personal cost. —Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (2012)

Germany, 1968: The priest's daughters Marianna and Juliane both fight for changes in society, like making abortion legal. However their means are totally different: while Juliane's committed as a reporter, her sister joins a terroristic organization. After she's caught by the police and put into isolation jail, Juliane remains as her last connection to the rest of the world. Although she doesn't accept her sister's arguments and her boyfriend Wolfgang doesn't want her to, Juliane keeps on helping her sister. She begins to question the way her sister is treated.

Marianne & Juliane

Marianne & Juliane (1981)

Daniel Olbrychski

Wronke Prison, 1916. Social democrat Rosa Luxemburg faces a mock execution. Twenty years earlier, Rosa's political gifts are acknowledged by everyone, as she struggles for democratic government in Germany and revolution in Poland. There she works closely with Leo Jogiches. Their political activity creates some difficulty for their personal relationship - As international tensions rise, Rosa makes speeches denouncing war and militarism. She seems too radical for her fellow Socialists. She meets Karl Liebknecht. When World War I begins, Rosa and Karl are united in opposition. —David Carless

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg (1986)

Hanna Schygulla

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Gottfried John

A film portrait of the influential Bavarian actor, director and screenwriter who publicly confessed his homosexuality.

Fassbinder

Fassbinder (2015)

7.7 / 10

Documentary

7 / 10

Adventure
Comedy

7.1 / 10

Drama
Romance

6.7 / 10

Action
Drama

7.6 / 10

Action
Drama

6.8 / 10

Action
Biography

6.8 / 10

Action
Drama

7.5 / 10

Drama
Romance

7.1 / 10

Action
Biography

7.4 / 10

Action
Drama

6.9 / 10

Action
Biography

6.6 / 10

Action
Documentary