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- The biography of renowned actor Rock Hudson is examined in this relevant investigation of Hollywood and LGBTQ+ identity, from his public "ladies' man" character to his private life as a gay man.
- Margaret Rutherford's true life story is in fact much more eccentric than the most famous fictional role she ever played: Miss Jane Marple - Agatha Christie's amateur sleuth. Rutherford's version was the very first appearance of Miss Marple on the big screen and it was far removed though from the petite, upper middle-class lady in the detective novels.
- The history of Playboy magazine as told by Hugh Hefner.
- Twenty five years after the death of Rock Hudson, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, biographers and movie historians discuss his career, his personal life and his death, all especially in relation to his closeted homosexuality. Born Roy Fitzgerald, Hudson treated who was known as "Rock Hudson" as being a studio creation that was somewhat outside himself. However, he sometimes was still "Rock Hudson: movie star" to those who knew him. Publicly, he had to maintain the façade of that creation, the public who saw in him a handsome, rugged, masculine yet likable and safe leading man and movie star. That façade included a short two-year marriage of convenience to Phyllis Gates. His movie career on the most part also supported that façade, especially when there was a foil of a more effeminate or nebbish male character playing against him. His life changed when he was diagnosed with AIDS - the disease which would eventually take his life - at a time when little was known about it beyond it afflicting most specifically homosexual males and it being a probable death sentence. Although it ravaged him physically and emotionally - the latter in some respects due to his homosexual orientation becoming common public knowledge - it also opened up the discussion about the disease within the public consciousness since he became the first true public face of the disease.
- December 30, 1916, three shots are fired in the rear courtyard of Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg. These hit and kill Grigori Rasputin. The story of the pious vagabond who became one of the most influential men in Russia has become a popular legend of the 20th century. "Rasputin - Murder in the Tsar's Court" tells the story of the last act of tragedy in the Tsarist Empire.
- When reading John Irving, you get the feeling that you are sitting at a table and one of the characters is handing you a glass of wine: Irving is one of the world's most read writers: More than 10 million copies of his 12 novels have been sold in 30 languages. In 2012 Irving will be celebrating his 70Th birthday. The film visualizes the elation in Irving's novels, a factor which makes him a literary figure of global format: a reality available for everyone, approachable though closely knitted plots and inhabited by characters and inventions boasting an exuberant lust for storytelling: the world according to Irving.
- The man who invented James Bond: The story of Ian Fleming, real-life spy, ladies' man and sportsman, who was there at the birth of MI-5 and the CIA, and gave the world one of its most enduring and iconic heroes: Bond. James Bond.
- Peeps behind the scenes of the golden era of Hollywood to discover exactly how and why Katherine Hepburn became one of the most famous actresses in the glamorous world of cinema. She was an intellectual outsider with a headstrong personality who embodied a completely new charismatic female on screen. Creating an image is nothing new in Hollywood, but she managed to control her own...
- Prideful castles, clear lakes and rough, snow-capped peaks. This is how the State of South Tyrol presents itself to visitors. It is the home of Reinhold Messner, the most famous mountaineer in the world, who takes the audience on a journey through one of the most beautiful mountain regions in Europe to look back on his spectacular life with conclusions about the imprint in childhood and youth through his homeland on the edge of the Limestone Alps, that made him who he is today. It is a journey of discovery through a beautiful country as well as a fascinating personality in breathtaking pictures, a life panorama of an unprecedented life in the mountains and with the mountains.
- Documentary on the history of gay and lesbian film.
- A documentary film based on Liverpool football club's anthem of the same name. The anthem originated from the 1909 Hungarian play 'Liliom' and was adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein.
- In 1950, 33-year-old black actor Sidney Poitier starred for the first time in Hollywood history in a film by Joseph Mankiewicz with the prescient title "The Door Opens". When he made his film debut a decade earlier, the self-taught young man, who grew up in the Bahamas before emigrating to New York as a teenager, was not allowed to eat his meals with the rest of the uniformly white studio staff. His character as a young surgeon confronted with racism revealed the hero's potential in a man who, until then, had only played the subordinate roles assigned to "people of color". With just a few carefully selected roles, Sidney Poitier, a staunch activist for the civil rights movement alongside his friend Harry Belafonte, became a star.
- A. Christie is the world's most translated writer. But who is the woman behind the sales records? A biographical search for clues, the unraveling of her personality whose existence and works were shaped by the history of the 20th century.
- He was a patron of science, a reformer, and might even be called the first modern ruler. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1212 to 1250, was an exceptional figure on the Roman-German imperial throne. Born and raised in the multi-ethnic state of Sicily, his reign was influenced by Byzantine and Norman traditions that allowed Jews and Muslims a large degree of freedom. All the royal houses in Europe are said to have looked up to him in awe. He saw himself as successor to the Roman emperors and ruler by the grace of God - a notion that was bound to collide with the Pope's claim to universal power. Frederick waged a bitter battle to maintain his power with five different popes. The Church excommunicated him several times and branded him a heretic and anti-Christ. Frederick responded with the sword, for the power-hungry emperor was prepared to resort to brutal violence to defend his supremacy. He even arrested his own son and left him to rot in the dungeon. A ruler rife with contradictions and a man who, 800 years after his death, has lost nothing of his fascination.
- If you ask most people in the street today about the Hollywood legend Doris Day, they will probably say "Is she still alive?" Yes, she is! And she will be celebrating her 85th birthday this year. Doris Day is living in Carmel-by-the-sea, a Californian resort with the charm of San Francisco and the glamor of Hollywood. Although she has not appeared in public for over thirty years, Doris Day is considered to be a cultural icon of the 20th and 21st century: Her films are shown regularly on TV worldwide, she still gets around 200 fan letters a week and she is selling more records than ever before. All over the world her songs are still known. This star has not come down from heaven but from the kitchen sink. Doris Day has written cinema history by simply playing the girl next door. So, who is the Doris Day of today? We are unveiling answers from the past, when we get to meet her actor and singer colleagues and friends: In Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and the German province. And the whole world is listening when radio station Magic 63 AM broadcasts a Doris Day Tribute programme on her birthday each year, which includes live telephone calls with her and friends throughout the day. We were there last year too, for her 84th birthday celebrations, living in Hotel Day, together with her most notorious fans - even if she cannot be there herself. The documentary will reflect the turbulent and successful life of Doris Day with footage of events in the USA in addition to extracts and trailers from some of her many feature films and stage and TV appearances, photos and material from private archives in order to reveal and contrast the foibles and characteristics of her real life against the background of her screen and music life.
- A documentary using fiction to bring Martin Suter's novels to life.
- The US government's propaganda machine during World War 2 was powered by cinema and the contributions of some of Hollywood's most famous directors. This is their story. For the USA, World War 2 was an all-out war - to mobilize the masses, the US government launched a huge propaganda campaign and cinema, the medium of the masses, was quite simply their most important weapon. Government authorities monitored the production of feature films and the military itself produced documentaries aimed at rallying the American people to support the troops. This film tells the story of four Hollywood directors of European origin, who returned to the "Old World" during the Second World War to make propaganda documentaries for the US Army at the front: William Wyler from Alsace, Frank Capra from Italy, Anatole Litvak from Ukraine and - in post-war Germany - Billy Wilder from Austria. The four men - three of whom came from Jewish families - risked their lives at times for their new homeland and returned to the USA with serious physical and psychological injuries. Their films are unique, long-forgotten documentaries dealing with the front line in Italy and the bombardment of Germany through to the liberation of Dachau.
- After their award winning documentary, 'Suddenly, Last Winter', Luca and Gustav are back. This time they have to decide: should they stay in Italy, or leave it, like so many of their friends have done already. Looking at some defining Italian icons, they go on a emotional trip on a old Fiat 500 through Italy, to look behind the cliches and to discover, what's left of the famous Italian way of life, confronting a glorious pas, a shaky present and an uncertain future.
- A documentary on the famed film writer-director Billy Wilder.