Productions

On the edge of Paraguay’s largest landfill, children and teenagers play in an orchestra on instruments built from what others throw away. When the orchestra of Cateura prepares for a three-month European tour, not everyone can go.

A German jazz pianist who asserted herself against all odds in the male-dominated jazz world of New York in the 1950s. The first white woman to receive a recording contract with Blue Note Records.

The documentary “Kurt Weill. From Dessau to Broadway” traces the eventful life of one of the most influential composers of the 20th century – from a Jewish cantor’s son in Dessau to a celebrated Broadway composer in New York.

There are over 300 Bach choirs and ensembles worldwide, in which singers, music lovers and amateur musicians from the most diverse cultures, religions and social classes sing. Whether they come from Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Paraguay, the USA or Switzerland, they are all united by one great passion: Johann Sebastian Bach and his work.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was a rebel with a paintbrush, an outsider in the artists’ group Die Brücke and a revolutionary of color. Inspired by Fauvism, he broke boundaries and created works full of expressive power.

schmidtFilm accompanies Aris Kalaizis, Leipzig painter with Greek roots, for a portrait for MDR and the ARD Mediathek. We take a look inside the studio and not only present an extraordinary work, but also travel with Kalaizis to Greece and tell the dramatic story of his parents’ escape, who ended up in the GDR as children.

Can an artificial intelligence capture the magic of music? Can it improvise like Michael Wollny or play with virtuosity like Kit Armstrong? The Future of Music embarks on a fascinating journey to the intersection of art, science and philosophy.

While the Thirty Years’ War rages around him, the plague ravages the land, and a Little Ice Age destroys the harvests, the German composer Heinrich Schütz writes the soundtrack of his time. But what kind of music is needed by people whose existence is surrounded by pain, suffering, and death?

Who was Hans Schomburgk – adventurer, big game hunter, explorer, colonialist or pioneer of ethnography?

The film “The Eye of Africa” tells the fascinating story of a man who helped shape the early days of documentary cinema like no other – and explored the African continent more intensively than few Europeans before him.

Who was Hans Schomburgk – adventurer, big game hunter, explorer, colonialist or pioneer of ethnography?

The film “The Eye of Africa” tells the fascinating story of a man who helped shape the early days of documentary cinema like no other – and explored the African continent more intensively than few Europeans before him.

Gustav Mahler is considered one of the greatest composers. His works dominate concert halls worldwide. In books and films, the inner life of this perfectionist musician has been thoroughly illuminated.

They love classic racetracks, demanding rallies, or the great adventure. They love speed, challenge, and risk. They love cars.

German film version in the ARTE media library

In Germany, the Holocaust has been processed in various ways for years—from a scientific perspective, an artistic perspective, through films, books, and exhibitions. This has shaped our view of history and drawn our image of it.

Family is of very high importance to most people. More than a few decades ago, young people state “marrying and having children” as a wish for the future. However, every fifth woman in Germany remains childless.

The Perthes family wrote world-famous publishing history in Gotha. Justus Perthes founded a map publishing house here, which made the residential city the center of geography in the 19th century.

Episode 1

Tea Mäkipää has established 10 commandments of the 20th century—10 commandments that are no longer about interpersonal relations, but about a no less fundamental problem: the sustainable handling of nature and our natural resources.

On Vimeo: C.H. Müller Company

With the MDR Children’s Choir

Collectors and museums all over the world adorn themselves with his works. The Church is also enthusiastic. Yet many fellow painters consider Triegel an artistic reactionary, as his kindred spirits are primarily painters of the Italian Renaissance such as Raphael or Leonardo.

The Chinese love Schiller. The German classic has been highly regarded by them for decades. For them, Schiller is THE poet of freedom. His dramas are compulsory reading in schools.

During the Cold War, both the capitalist and communist camps tried to influence the thoughts of children and young people through comics and cartoons. Subtly, and sometimes less subtly, they engaged in ideological propaganda.

Apples have always been the favorite fruit of Germans. Saxony is the third-largest fruit-growing region in Germany. The Saxon fruit country is home to 200 apple varieties—some with bizarre names like “Dicke Berta,” “Edler von Leipzig,” “Schöner aus Herrnhut,” or “Prinzessin Marianne.”

The Rosarium in Sangerhausen has been attracting visitors from all over the world to the southern Harz for over 100 years. No wonder, as it houses the world’s largest rose collection. More than 8,700 species are preserved here.

Eléna is 10 and has been playing Kidditch for a year—that’s the name for children’s teams in Quidditch, the wizarding sport invented by J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and her dad are clearly to blame for Eléna’s passion for this extraordinary game.

THE STORY OF THE LAST GDR ANTARCTIC RESEARCHERS

TRAILER

For 25 years, Dr. Hans-Ulrich Peter has been traveling to Antarctica—longer and more often than any other German ornithologist. In 1983, when the ornithologist from the University of Jena was on King George Island for the first time with a GDR research expedition, he stayed for a full 15 months.

“Where the Elbe makes a bend, there lies Aken,” says a local proverb. Most Germans have probably never heard of the small town on the banks of the Elbe between Magdeburg and Dessau. Yet Aken has much to offer: an idyllic location in the middle of the Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve, the medieval old town in a grid pattern with playful skipper’s houses—and an inland port that is one of the most important in Central Germany.

Theme Day “Our Planet Earth”

In the autumn of 1945, Ireland launched a unique relief operation that saved over 1,000 children from war-torn areas in France, Germany, and Austria from starvation. The children stayed with Irish host families for up to three years before returning home; some stayed forever. The film tells the unknown story of “Operation Shamrock,” which had unforeseen consequences for the children. Five of them remember.

It is a myth and an economic factor, a tourism magnet and cultural capital—the Thuringian Forest. No other federal state has such a high tree density as the “green heart of Germany.”

Jimi Hendrix played it, Elvis played it, so did Bob Marley. Paul McCartney, Sting, Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Wolfgang Niedecken. Eric Clapton caused a run on the Martin guitar after his legendary Unplugged concert in 1992, an incredible success story in instrument manufacturing.

China is booming. So much so that entirely new cities are emerging in the Middle Kingdom. One of them is Anting New Town on the outskirts of Shanghai. Planned and designed by German architects, including Christian Wittig from Weimar. He was commissioned to design parks, streets, leisure facilities, and the urban infrastructure.

The film will also be available in the media library afterwards.

Opinions are divided in Jena regarding Pastor Lothar König. Many would like to be rid of him, along with the street children he has cared for for years. But the regional church stands behind the pastor of the Junge Gemeinde Stadtmitte, who fights daily against prejudice and addresses social problems with provocative actions.

A mysterious castle high up on an old vineyard, surrounded by a landscape that couldn’t be painted more beautifully. A stubborn lord of the castle who rarely looks after the property. A young baron who wants to save it. And a past that holds dark secrets. Vitzenburg Castle in the middle of the famous Saale-Unstrut wine-growing region.

Many rumors surround a salt mine shaft in the small village of Wansleben in Saxony-Anhalt. In the final years of the war, it served the Nazis as a hiding place for valuable cultural assets, such as the historical books and manuscripts of the Halle Leopoldina, and later as an underground concentration camp for the production of V2 weapons.

The year 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. The revolution of 1917 changed the world forever and shaped the lives of millions of people. And with it, the work of three significant Russian composers of the 20th century.

They are the most famous artists’ colony of the 20th century. The epitome of modern living at that time. A model for residential ensembles in Israel, the USA, and South America: The Masters’ Houses in Dessau.

From Schwarza in Thuringia comes the fabric from which socialist dreams were once woven: Dederon. Easy-care, water-repellent, non-iron. In the “Wilhelm Pieck” chemical fiber plant, 1,800 workers produced the famous GDR artificial silk around the clock.

“Max Reger was the last giant in music. I am unthinkable without him.” Paul Hindemith

They wear black and call themselves “Gothics”: the followers of the scene stand out from the ordinary street scene. But being Gothic is more than a costume. It is a search for a deeper meaning in life. But how does one live a black life?

They wear black and call themselves “Gothics”: the followers of the scene stand out from the ordinary street scene. But being Gothic is more than a costume. It is a search for a deeper meaning in life. But how does one live a black life?

For more than 60 years, Benno Pludra was an unmistakable voice in German and international children’s and youth literature. With his novel “Tambari,” he achieved the status of a classic in 1969. Through his work, he represents the children’s and youth literature of the GDR from its beginnings like no other.

Exakt – Die Story

November 10, 1989, at the GDR Antarctic station “Georg Forster,” evening: It is the radio operator who spreads the unbelievable news: “There are people on the Wall in Berlin—the border to the West is open.” Everyone is amazed, one person interjects: “That can’t be, they’re doing a psychological test on us.”

When people talk about Bach today, they instinctively think of Johann Sebastian. 250 years ago, it was different. When Mozart said: “He is the father, we the boys. Whichever of us can do anything right has learned it from him,” he was not talking about Johann Sebastian, but about his second oldest son Carl Philipp Emanuel, whose 300th birthday we were able to celebrate in 2014.

Wolfen near Bitterfeld: Huge old halls from the heyday of the 20s, faded logos, prefabricated concrete complexes, and hundreds of stories. All of this is a reminder of ORWO: “Original Wolfen.” ORWO stands for the first color film in the world, the largest film and fiber producer in Europe, and for the economic miracle of the GDR.

What is home in Germany? 16 German actors, presenters, and reporters travel to their federal state to discover it with a camera. Each state is presented in a fifteen-minute portrait. 16 times German everyday life, viewed through the eyes of very different filmmakers who are familiar with a region that has always been home to them or has become so by detour.

ARTE Series Wagner versus Verdi, Part 1

From March 11 to March 18, 2012, the GewandhausChor travels to India at the invitation of the Goethe Institute. The renowned amateur choir, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this season, will perform the world premiere of a work by Leipzig composer Bernd Franke in Calcutta and Bangalore, among other places.

The Pope is turning 85 and has requested a serenade from the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the MDR Choir. He will get it, too. On April 20, 2012. schmidtFilm is there for the MDR and takes a look behind the scenes at the Vatican.

It wasn’t just in the GDR that everyone had one. Prakticas were also sought after in West Germany. In 1949—with the founding of the Republic—the first of these SLR cameras came onto the market.

schmidtFilm reports for the MDR regional studio Thuringia from Almaty in Kazakhstan on the conclusion of the German-Kazakh Year. The occasion: On December 24, Meiningen theater director Ansgar Haag and Meiningen director Kerstin Jacobsen will stage Wagner’s “Tannhäuser.” In the country’s largest opera house, Wagner will be heard for the first time on Kazakh soil.

Wolfen near Bitterfeld: Huge old halls from the heyday of the 20s, faded logos, a museum with polished original machines, prefabricated concrete complexes, and hundreds of stories. All of this is a reminder of ORWO: “Original Wolfen”: the synonym for photo and film material in the GDR.

Here are first impressions of the filming about the Maxhütte Unterwellenborn. In the old gas engine center, a hall 110 meters long, 27 meters high, and 32 meters wide, stand massive gas engine turbines that used to make the air vibrate at 110 decibels.

Anna Schmidt as director for the company Euroarts

100 years ago, Oberhof experienced the birth of German winter sports. Hotel directors, property tycoons, and spa doctors discovered sport as a money-maker. The nobility passed the time at the bobsleigh and sledding tracks.

Their families determined the fate of Thuringia for centuries. Today they are back: the heirs of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, and Reuss. A rented apartment instead of a castle, a forester’s house instead of a residence, civic spirit instead of feudal power. What does the nobility want today? “His Highness is Back.”

For Western intelligence services, Markus Wolf was the man without a face for decades. For more than 30 years, he headed the GDR’s foreign intelligence service. His specialty—foreign espionage.

The perfect human being—a dream for centuries. Since science has succeeded in manipulating human genes, a new moral-ethical discussion about the ideal human being has been set in motion. Nazi Germany also worked on a human elite.

Berlin 1948—the city lay in ashes. The Allies had divided it among themselves. In the spring of the same year, the Soviets shut down Berlin. They blocked all access routes to the Western sector.

60 years ago, Germans across the country were awakened by the sound of shattering glass. In towns and villages, synagogues and shops owned by Jews were burning.

For centuries, its construction was one of humanity’s greatest architectural secrets. Now, the German architectural historian Prof. Volker Hoffmann has solved the mystery of the eighth wonder of the world.