German Music Movies

In Venice Beach, naive Midwesterner JB bonds with local slacker KG and they form the rock band Tenacious D. Setting out to become the world's greatest band is no easy feat, so they set out to steal what could be the answer to their prayers... a magical guitar pick housed in a rock-and-roll museum some 300 miles away.

When a mysterious glitch sends a rising boyband back to 1995 - just days before the biggest showcase of their lives - the five friends race to reverse the time slip. But as unexpected connections form and the past pulls them in deeper, getting home means confronting what they're willing to leave behind - and who they truly are to each other.

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Xatar’s way from the ghetto to the top of the charts is as dramatic as it is daring. From the hell of an Iraqi jail, Giwar Hajabi emigrated to Germany as a young boy with his family in the mid-1980s and has to start right at the bottom. There are opportunities, but far more obstacles. Giwar’s rise from petty criminal to major dealer is swift. Until one shipment goes missing. In order to clear his debts with the cartel, he plans a legendary gold heist. But just as everything goes wrong, another door opens for Giwar thanks to his passion for music …

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

A seventeen year old travels from London to the Austrian Alps to attend the legendary Mozart boarding school. There, he discovers a centuries-old forgotten passageway into the fantastic world of Mozart's "The Magic Flute".

Hollywood film music has its roots in Europe. Three composers who fled war and National Socialism to the USA created the sound that still shapes film music today: Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner and Franz Waxman. In the early 20th century, these classically trained composers transformed the methods acquired in Vienna and Berlin into a new American art form: film music. They balanced the relationship between image and sound and developed techniques and dramaturgical tricks to achieve the greatest possible effect on the viewer. Their influence is visible in the work of contemporary US composers such as John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. Today, Oscar winner Hans Zimmer, Ramin Djawadi and Harold Faltermeyer continue this tradition. Their melodies are part of humanity's collective memory and reflect the combined traditions of European and American musical history. The documentary accompanies composers in their work and explores the European roots of Hollywood.

On stage since she was a toddler, Googoosh has been an icon of Iranian pop culture since the 1970s. Her progressive style and raw singing talent attracted worldwide acclaim and saw her performing alongside the likes of Tina Turner and Ray Charles. But the star's career came to an abrupt halt after the Islamic Revolution, which banned women from singing in public. Googoosh was placed under house arrest, where she remained for the next two decades. Niloufar Taghizadeh's documentary, which includes interviews with the charismatic singer (now in her seventies, but still performing and advocating for women and girls) and arresting archival footage, offers both a loving portrait of a national icon and a fascinating historical and cultural record of Iran.

The rise and fall of Milli Vanilli, a studio group assembled by German producer Frank Farian and fronted by nightclub dancers Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan. After a string of worldwide hit singles, awards and performances, it was revealed that the duo never sang a note of their songs, leading to one of the biggest scandals in music history.

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In 2007, the Berliner Philharmoniker celebrated their 125th anniversary. Film director Enrique Sánchez Lansch took this occasion to tell a hitherto unknown chapter in the history of the Berliner Philharmoniker: the years of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945. The film, “The Reichsorchester”, made in collaboration with musicians of the orchestra and its archive.

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 2 June 1992.

Frank Castorf revolutionised German-language theatre in the post-Berlin Wall era, bringing to the stage intellectual and political acuteness, brash references and a not infrequent use of crude humour. He brought these qualities to the Bayreuth Festival where his production of the Ring ran from 2013 to 2017. This 2016 recording of Das Rheingold captures Marek Janowski's festival debut as conductor of this unique production, in which Castorf replaces the Rheingold with oil as the central commodity in a pre-capitalist society. The first night of the Ring cycle begins at a gas station off of Route 66, the main road connecting the East and West coasts of the USA, that played an important role in commerce in the 1920s.

Christl, the forester’s daughter, apprehends a young hunter in the forest and only lets him go after he pays a small fine. But when Christl goes to the emperor shortly afterward to plead on behalf of her beloved—a Hungarian officer who has fallen out of favor—she can hardly believe her eyes: the young hunter was the emperor.

"Oil is the equivalent of what used to be gold. A luxury that we cannot eat," explained director Frank Castorf in an interview, outlining one of the key ideas behind his production of the Ring at Bayreuth. In the final part of the tetralogy, the wild journey ventures to the Buna chemical plants in Schkopau and to New York's Wall Street, among other places. Inspired by the aesthetic of Hollywood B movies, the production was first met with disapproval but grew to gain many supporters over the years.

Prince Klemens von Metternich orders Friedrich Gentz, one of his aides, to keep the Duke of Reichstadt---Napoleon Francois Joseph Charles---son of Napoleon and heir to the French throne, from thinking about French politics. Gentz enlists the help of ballerina Fanny Elsser, all the rage in several European capitals, to keep the Duke distracted.

Philipp Jedicke’s second feature documentary presents itself as a cineast eulogy for the Viennese pop scene as a curious and heterogeneous bunch with an extremely idiosyncratic radiance.

From an ominous Lecturer, a small 1930s middle American community learns of the Harper Affair, in which young Jimmy Harper finds his life of promise turn into a life of debauchery and murder thanks to the new drug menace marijuana. Along the way, he receives help from his girlfriend Mary and Jesus Himself, but always finds himself in the arms of the Reefer Man and the rest of the denizens of the Reefer Den.

Personal interviews with Haftbefehl and those closest to him reveal the story behind the German rap icon as he takes a brutally honest look at his life.

German composer Richard Wagner wrote Parsifal, which is a three-act opera that tells the story of the title character's quest to save the Knights of the Holy Grail by returning the Holy Spear, healing King Amfortas, and carrying out the sacred ceremony of uncovering the Holy Grail.

Sylva Varescu is an operetta singer performing Kálmán's Die Czardasfürstin through Europe with great success. Before going to Vienna she meets handsome Prinz Weylerstein and they fall in love. Offered a contract for America, she doubts until she finds out that he is already engaged to a countess.

Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.

The new Bayreuth production of the Ring Cycle that premiered in 2013 offered spectacular sets, courtesy of Aleksandar Denić. As is regularly the case in Frank Castorf's productions, live video recordings add an extra dimension and in this performance Die Walküre is set at the beginning in the 19th century and then moves ahead to the Stalin era. The geographic setting is Baku, Azerbaijan, so in addition to Wild West capitalism, Castorf also takes aim at Soviet communism. The leading roles are also strongly cast in this third revival of Castorf's production, with Christopher Ventris, Heidi Melton, Catherine Foster and John Lundgren.

Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.

Chronicles the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe, John Lennon, and Sutcliffe's girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr.

In a pseudo-futuristic 1994, a square couple enter the corrupt world of the music industry, and subsequently a maze of drugs, sex, and temptation.

Today is Lara’s 60th birthday, which happens to fall on the same day as her pianist son’s career-defining concert. A failed pianist herself, Lara spends the time before his performance pacing about Berlin—boiling with jealousy, nerves, and pride—trying to get hold of her elusive son.

A look at the lives of 19th-century composers Clara and Robert Schumann.

A huge, run-down apartment in Berlin Mitte. Two women and a man, rehearsals for a movie about love and sex, that will never be shot. Acting and reality mingle into a dangerous mélange.

Frank Castorf's Ring makes a feature of unexpected settings and striking images, and here in Siegfried he shows the discussions between the young hero and his foster father Mime in Act I against a background featuring giant heads of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao on a replica of Mount Rushmore. The typical mythical nature and forest world of the second act is replaced in this production by Berlin's Alexanderplatz. The Nothung sword is also replaced, in this production becoming a machine gun. While the direction elicited both approval and disapproval, the vocal performances received wide acclaim.

Pianist Jenny, once a musical prodigy, finds her footing in the Christian faith after serving 15 years for a murder she didn't commit. When she learns that her childhood sweetheart, once responsible for her ordeal, has become an internationally acclaimed star, the overwhelming need for revenge threatens her fragile agreement with God and her relationship with a Syrian musician who offers Jenny honest care and trust.

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Four girls seeks happiness on the dance floor among the handsome and rich gentlemen.

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The story is set at the beginning of the Christian era on a large terrace of Herod’s palace, during the reign of Herod Antipas. At night, on a terrace of the palace, Salome, Herod’s stepdaughter, is gazed at passionately by Narraboth, captain of the guard. Jochanaan, a prophet, is imprisoned in a cistern for having slandered Herod. He proclaims the coming of Jesus, but his message is met with incomprehension by the guards. Salome hears the prophet. She manages to convince the guards to bring Jochanaan out so she can see him. Both fascinated and frightened by his prophecies, Salome falls passionately in love with this man. Richard Strauss’s opera at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, directed by Romeo Castellucci at the Felsenreitschule. In her debut in the title role, Asmik Grigorian distinguished herself with her talents as a singer and actress.

The concert film Buried Alive, directed by Mika Ronkainen, filmed at the funeral gig, was premiered at Oulu Music Video Festival September 9, 2006. It's the last word from the band, that ended right after this show.

This is a beautifully conducted and thoughtfully staged performance of the first opera (the prologue) in Wagner's Ring Cycle. As soon as the clouds of mist have dissipated, while the daring, long-held opening chord is still reverberating, the screen clears to show not only the River Rhine and the three maidens (dressed like prostitutes in this production) assigned to guard the gold hidden there. It also shows an enormous dam (not mentioned in Wagner's text). This is the underwater base of a hydroelectric plant, and its presence tells us two things immediately: that this production takes the story out of the vaguely medieval fantasy world in which Wagner had placed it, and that a basic theme of the four-opera cycle would be power. Alberich, the Nibelung, is willing to renounce the love of women, after stealing the gold from the Rhine, to become the ruler of the world. Another basic theme is greed.

The origin story of one of Italy's greatest rock stars, Gianna Nannini, who chased her dream despite obstacles from her family and the music industry.

Anew production of Tannhäuser, which was premiered on 26 July 2019 and presented the Bayreuth debut of conductor Valery Gergiev, as well as the house debut of young soprano star Lise Davidsen. Tobias Kratzer’s staging presented Tannhäuser as a wildly contemporary parable of art and freedom which was praised as “novel” and “wrenching” (New York Times) and received exceptional press acclaim. hey were joined by mezzo soprano Elena Zhidkova’s Venus (“scene stealing”, according to Opera Today), baritone Markus Eiche’s Wolfram and Stephen Milling’s Landgraf.

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