Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis

On April 20 of 1988, six young people stormed the central Banamex branch in Los Mochis and held hostage the people inside the location. 30 years after this incident, the survivors recount what happened.

Nine fictitious documentaries and films reflect the mood of late 1970s Germany, particularly the two-month period in 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped by the RAF (Red Army Faction). The kidnap had been made to orchestrate the release of the original leaders of the RAF, aka the Baader-Meinhof.

An Italian cruise ship carrying passengers from all over the world is hijacked off the coast of Egypt by a Palestinian commando unit. It is the beginning of a three-day ordeal in 1985 that culminates in the murder of an American hostage and an armed clash between two NATO allies to capture his killers.

Documentary on the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, with a focus on the production of his unfinished film Game of Death. Using interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, Lee aficionado John Little paints a portrait of the world's most famous action hero, concluding with a new cut of Game of Death's action finale, reconstructed from Lee's notes and recently-recovered footage.

The full story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli revenge operation 'Wrath of God.' The 1972 Munich Olympics were interrupted by Palestinian terrorists taking Israeli athletes hostage. Besides footage taken at the time, we see interviews with the surviving terrorist, Jamal Al Gashey, and various officials detailing exactly how the police, lacking an anti-terrorist squad and turning down help from the Israelis, botched the operation.

May 27th, 1971 was a rainy day. In the small town Radevormwald, the world seems to be still in order. But on this day, 46 people die in a train crash, amongst them 41 schoolchildren. Since then, Radevormwald has been connected with one of the worst railway catastrophes of Germany. The touching documentary reconstructs the tragedy and shows how much the event still influences the life in the town until today.

A documentary chronicle of the prisoners’ takeover of the Garcia Moreno Penitentiary in Quito, Ecuador. The prisoners find they suddenly have a voice after they take 360 people hostage, and a pattern of abuse and corruption by the guards toward the prisoners becomes clear after lengthy negotiations.

Kraftwerk's vision of a keyboard-driven world of clicking metronomic rhythms and digitised sound bites may have been the stuff of avant fantasy in the 1970s (the decade that saw the band's first groundbreaking albums), but it is a reality in the new millennium. Their visionary style is explored in KRAFTWERK AND THE ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION, a study of the group, their career and their emergence as the most influential electronic band in the world.

On August 4, 1971 at 15:55, Dimitri Todorov and Hand Georg Rammelmayr robbed the Deutsche Bank in Prinzregentenstraße, Munich. They were hoping for DEM 2 000 000. Later, when the police stormed the bank, Todorov's partner got killed. Now, after 22 years in prison Dimitri is free.

During the donations scandal of 1999/2000, Helmut Kohl gave his legendary "word of honor" not to name any donors. This documentary explores the question of what this word of honor was really all about

Instructions on how to make a Molotov Cocktail

Marcel Ophüls interviews various important Eastern European figures for their thoughts on the reunification of Germany and the fall of Communism.

In this true-crime documentary, a charismatic rebel in 1990s Seattle pulls off an unprecedented string of bank robberies straight out of the movies.

In a investigation into the pernicious origins of Stockholm Syndrome, a thrilling family story intersects with a dramatic bank robbery in Sweden (1973) and the famous kidnapping of Patty Hearst (1974).

This James A. FitzPatrick Traveltalks short visits the West German cities of Hamburg, Bremen, Munich, and Heidelberg. Included are scenes of World War II destruction that lingered at the time.

In buildings where foreign workers lived in Germany, there were strict rules of conduct, defined by the house rules and supervised by the building superintendents. Many rights regarding the freedom of movement, communication and behavior were abused. Interviews with the tenants and with the "orderlies" which point out absurd situations and clashes caused by these restrictions.

Andorra, a tiny, independent country situated between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains with a total population of 80,000 people, found itself at the center of one of the most convoluted and outrageous bank robberies in modern history.

The French researcher Bertrand Monnet visits pirates in Nigeria and Somalia to learn how they make money from oil theft and kidnapping.

A BAFTA award nominated documentary intended for secondary schools exploring the three distinct geographical regions of Germany from a British perspective.

A film essay investigating the question of what “the West” means beyond the cardinal direction: a model of society inscribed itself in the Federal Republic of Germany’s postwar history and architecture. The narrator shifts among reflections on modern architecture and property relations, detailed scenes from childhood, and a passed-down memory of a “hemmed-in West Germany,” recalling the years of her parents’ membership in a 1970s communist splinter group.