Jo Baier
Nobel Prize winner of 1946, with more than 100 million copies Hermann Hesse is the world's most widely read German-language author of all time. To this day, many people associate Hermann Hesse with their first or formative reading experience. The documentary goes on the Hesse track of these people and at the same time on the track of the author, who has managed like no other, to become a role model.
August Staudenmeyer returns after thirty years absence as a wealthy man in his hometown Gerbersau. First, the successful businessman is received with open arms. But when he stands up for the outlawed widow Katharina Entriss, he gets sidelined. August realizes that the narrow-mindedness of the Gerbersauer has by no means changed. Richer for an experience and a love, he leaves home a second time.
A wide-ranging, energetic period piece tracing the rise of the Protestant Henry of Navarre as he goes from battlefield warrior to France's beloved King Henri IV. Director Jo Baier's epic is a classically entertaining adventure, albeit one with more than a little bloodshed and frequent bawdy sexual interludes. In late 16th-century France, Catholics and Protestant Huguenots were at war. Seemingly seeking peace, the French dowager queen, Catherine de Medici summons Henry to her court to have him marry her daughter, uniting the two warring factions. However, the Catholics slaughter the Protestant wedding guests in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and Henry-now married-must use all his guile to both stay alive and maneuver for the throne. [Written by Palm Springs International Film Festival]
When an extraordinary man who has lived through all is approaching his end, he decides to call his son to join him for the last time at his home in Tuscany. His intention is to share some valuable conversations about his life as a press correspondent in Southeast Asia, about the political and social changes which he has seen, and about the spiritual transformation he has experienced in recent years. But for him the most important is to show his son how he is preparing for the last great adventure of a lifetime.
Based on the childhood memories of actor Michael Degen, the movie deals with the everyday struggle to survive as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany. As his father had died in 1940 after being released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Michael and his mother fear to be deported themselves. They manage to live in Berlin with false names and faked papers, hidden by several, often broken, people...
In 1944, a group of high command officers plot an attempt against Hitler, and one of the leaders of the conspiracy, Stauffenberg (Sebastian Koch), goes to a meeting with the Fuhrer in charge of exploding the place. However, Hitler survives and the officers are executed. This unsuccessful operation was called "Valkyrie Operation", and this realistic movie discloses this true event.
