The Stasi: Secrets, Lies and British Spies

With access to recently-opened court files, Julie Etchingham reveals some of the Stasi's UK operations and asks why its other secrets are yet to be revealed.

Dworzec

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.

Verliebt, verlobt, verloren

Ein Traum in Erdbeerfolie

This film undertakes a journey into the amazing parallel universe of East Berlin’s fashion designers and experts in the art of survival. For, in the midst of the constraints of life in the GDR, there existed a fantasy world where it was possible to dance to another tune, be individual and even provocative. The most important characteristic of this bohemian scene was one’s per- sonal style. But this certainly wasn’t something that could be bought off the peg in the GDR. In this parallel universe it was up to you to create your own individual image – with your own hands. This film tells the story of the desires, the passion and the dreams that were tried and tested, lived and performed in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

Das offene Geheimnis

A documentary that explores questions of secrecy and power in relation to the East German Secret Police (the 'Stasi') within East German society. The film is based upon key findings from an extensive research project, 'Knowing the Secret Police', and reflects upon how different kinds of knowledge were circulated through social, religious, political and literary networks within the former GDR. The filmmakers present this research with footage filmed at key locations throughout East Berlin and the wider surrounding landscape, including the Stasi archives and former HQ, Karl-Marx-Allee, Volkspark Friedrichshain, rural 'dacha' cabins, the urban neighbourhood of Prenzlauerberg and the social housing estates of Marzahn.

OstPunk! Too much Future

Tells the story of punk in the GDR.

Sag mir, wo du stehst

Schwerter zu Pflugscharen

In September 1983, a sword is forged into a ploughshare in Wittenberg. It is the most spectacular action of the peace movement in the GDR. Its initiator was the Wittenberg theologian Friedrich Schorlemmer.

Auf der Oder

Scandalous Conduct: A Fairy Extravaganza

An Episcopal minister. 41 naval recruits. A zealous newspaper editor. A pandemic. A drag show. A beanstalk. The YMCA. A future president of the United States. This multiple screen installation looks at the 1919 Newport Sex Scandal.

Trotz und Treue: Das Phänomen Sahra Wagenknecht

2024 is likely to be a decisive year for Sahra Wagenknecht's political future. In the arena of power, she might assume a role that she is already very familiar with. In the early years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sahra Wagenknecht became the "most famous face" of the PDS, the successor party to the SED. Yet, even as the youngest member of the party's executive board, she was considered a "disruptive factor." She is unyielding and swims against the tide. Sahra Wagenknecht does not distance herself from Stalinism, nor from the Berlin Wall, and wishes for a reformed GDR.

In, out and about

An exploration of the interconnected experiences of queerness and illness, this film navigates personal and collective journeys through medical spaces, sexual violence, and survival, displays the profound impact on body and identity.

Renegade: The Life Story of David Icke

A Feature Documentary, featuring David Icke The 'mad man' who has been proved right again and again and again. David Icke has been warning for nearly 30 years of a coming global Orwellian state in which a tiny few would enslave humanity through control of finance, government, media and a military-police Gestapo overseeing 24/7 surveillance of a micro-chipped population. They called him 'crazy', 'insane', a 'lunatic', and he was subjected to decades of ridicule, dismissal and abuse. Oh, but how things change. Today his books are read all over the world and his speaking events are watched by thousands on every continent. Why? Because what he has been so derided for saying is now happening in world events and even mainstream scientists are concluding that reality is indeed a simulation. Almost every day something that David Icke said long ago is supported by happenings and evidence. As Mahatma Gandhi said: 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit - Alltag einer Behörde

Theaterarbeit

A review of 25 years of theatre work by the Berliner Ensemble, dedicated mostly to plays by Bertolt Brecht. Interviews with stage hands and lighting technicians provide an interesting view behind the scenes.

Erasing David

David Bond lives in one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world. He decides to find out how much private companies and the government know about him by putting himself under surveillance and attempting to disappear, a decision that changes his life forever. Leaving his pregnant wife and young child behind, he is tracked across the database state on a chilling journey that forces him to contemplate the meaning of privacy and the loss of it.

Die Zeit meines Lebens - Dirty Dancing in Ost und West

Junge Deutsche im Mai

Every year, the most beautiful, best and proudest representatives of German youth meet in Dresden to take to the streets together.

Nothing to Hide

NOTHING TO HIDE is an independent documentary dealing with surveillance and its acceptance by the general public through the "I have nothing to hide" argument. The documentary was produced and directed by a pair of Berlin-based journalists, Mihaela Gladovic and Marc Meillassoux. It was crowdfunded by over 400 backers. NOTHING TO HIDE questions the growing, puzzling and passive public acceptance of massive corporate and governmental incursions into individual and group privacy and rights. After the emotion initially triggered by the Snowden revelations, it seems that the general public has finally accepted to live in a monitored digital world.

Surveilled

Uncover the insidious ways in which our daily lives are being surveilled by the state. In a gripping chase, Ronan Farrow travels across the world following breadcrumbs and finally exposing a dark world of spywares, hacking, and peddling of private information, where activists and journalists are persecuted, and no one is protected from the watchful and vicious eyes of authoritarianism.