BAP - Ode to Cologne

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.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of documents were hastily shredded by the dreaded GDR political police. 16,000 bags filled with six million pieces of paper were found. Thanks to the meticulous work of technology, the destinies of men and women who had been spied on and recorded without their knowledge could be reconstructed.

Germany's most popular punk rock band "Die Toten Hosen" ("The dead pants") celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2012. In his film "Nichts als die Wahrheit - 30 Jahre Die Toten Hosen" ("Nothing but the truth - 30 years Die Toten Hosen"), established documentary filmmaker Eric Friedler succeeds at presenting an interior view of a band that evolved from an enfant terrible to a pop culture icon and whose work mirrors German history. Friedler takes the audience on a two-hour long roller coaster ride about success and failures.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, we look back in pictures at the unusual and flamboyant career of the prodigy from Liverpool.

Some months after the fall of the Berlin wall, during the time of federal elections in Germany in 1990, Chris Marker shot this passionate documentary, reflecting the state of the place and its spirit with remarkable acuity.

Before there were home video formats and the internet, the “Bahnhofskinos” (“Train station cinemas”) in West Germany regularly showed trash and erotica movies. Various filmmakers and especially contemporary witnesses recount in the documentary “Cinema Perverso – the wonderful and broken world of Bahnhofskino” their experiences and impressions.

Portrait of the German-German singer-songwriter and intellectual Wolf Biermann, whose famous Cologne concert in 1976 made German history.

Roland Kaiser has invited a wide range of well-known artists, such as Ronan Keating, Adel Tawil, Glasperlenspiel, Wolfgang Niedecken and BAP, Maite Kelly, Ben Zucker, Sarah Zucker, Santiano, Annett Louisan, Jeanette Biedermann, Max Raabe, David Garrett, Götz Alsmann, Sotiria, Oonagh, Joel Brandenstein and the German Television Ballet, for his new music show. They will not only present their own love songs, but also perform extraordinary duets with the host. Love is probably the most frequently sung about theme in music. It gives people the strength to overcome many things, to accompany them in good times and to carry them through difficult times.

The Nuremberg communication center, known as “KOMM” for short, was a nationwide pioneer. The social, youth and cultural policy experiences of that time can be found today in countless institutions throughout Germany - in the art/cultural education work of “high culture” as well as in the self-image of open district centers and cultural offerings for all social groups.

He went on a bender with Motörhead’s Lemmy and spend some night in jail. He was a street musician, a working class hero, a thug, a fairy and most of all a rebel – Jürgen Zeltinger is a Cologne icon. With his band he covered Lou Reed and the Ramones in the Kölsch dialect in the 80s, and his social justice anthems against the rich and powerful and for the little man are being bellowed by rowdy crowds to this day. Documentary filmmaker Oliver Schwabe accompanies the now elder statesman of Rock on tour, digs up old live footage and interviews friends and colleagues like musician Wolfgang Niedecken and actor Heiner Lauterbach. So emerges the fascinating story of the stout, bald street kid with the short fuse who would go on to influence a whole generation.

Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.

After suffering a personal tragedy, and desperate for justice, Jacob Kanon, a veteran New York City police detective, embarks on the search for a twisted killer who is leaving a bloody trail of elaborate murders across Europe.

An American backpacker gets involved with a ring of drug smugglers as their driver, and winds up on the run from his employers across Cologne’s autobahns.

The story of Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch, who was coerced into assisting the Nazi operation of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.

Abahachi, Chief of the Apache Indians, and his blood brother Ranger maintain peace and justice in the Wild West. One day, Abahachi needs to take up a credit from the Shoshone Indians to finance his tribe's new saloon. Unfortunately Santa Maria, who sold the saloon, betrays Abahachi, takes the money and leaves. Soon, the Shoshones are on the warpath to get their money back, and Abahachi is forced to organize it quickly.

Mirco von Juterczenka's novel "Wir Wochenendrebellen" is the story of a father and his ten-year-old son, who is Asperger's autistic. The boy has set his mind on finally finding his favourite football club. But his selection criteria are very specific and besides, he wants to experience all the clubs (no matter in which league they play) live in the stadium.

After again attempting to commit murder, a Jewish man with a mysterious past and extraordinary intelligence, charisma, and body control returns to an insane asylum, where he makes a startling discovery.

The devil tricks a little boy off his laughter in exchange for assured wins in all his bets. It depicts his journey after the deal with the devil, how he loses his soul bit by bit with each win.

Budapest in the 1930s. Restaurant owner Laszlo hires pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody sets off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans falls in love with Ilona as well.

Literary adaptation: a handsome youth of humble origins rises in society through his connections made as an elevator attendant in a luxury hotel.

The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.

Tom Sawyer has a head full of pranks and drives when he invents is not just a new adventure, preferably around with his best buddy Huck Finn - much to the chagrin of his Aunt Polly with Tom and his half-brother Sid in the town of St. Petersburg on the Mississippi river.

Oskar Roehler's drama Der Alte Affe Angst (Angst) is about the dissolution of a couple. Robert (Andre Hennicke) and Marie (Marie Baumer) have little in common other than their sex life. Since Robert is going through a bout with impotency, they are having a very rocky time. Robert learns that his father, whom he is estranged from, has died. This disturbs Robert so much that he visits a prostitute, and is able to engage in sex with her. Marie discovers the infidelity, and the prostitute has a surprise of her own. Angst was screened at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival.

1981, Quiberon, a small village on the coast of Brittany, France. Hilde Fritsch arrives to visit her old friend who has retreated to a spa hotel to escape the daily pressures of her life. Her friend is world-famous star Romy Schneider, but together, they appear like two regular women who are just happy to be reunited. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Hilde is supposed to offer the support the sensitive actress needs to be able to truly face her own demons.

At the end of the XIX century in Russia, Prince Dimitri Necklivdov is called as a jury-man in a trial. The defendant is Katiuscia Maslova, accused of murdering a merchant in order to rob him. Dimitri recognizes Katiuscia: she was the girl he seduced many years before. Dimitri decides to save her.

A 17 year old boy falls in love with a 37 year old woman. As if this wouldn't be enough they are of different social classes and she is married.

Originally banned in 1966, East German director Jürgen Böttcher's tale of love and disillusionment among two newlyweds attempting to navigate the treacherous world of marriage was never officially released in his homeland until after reunification in 1990.

Thomas and Hanna, a deliriously happy couple in their late 30s, buy an old house in the country with plans to fix it up over the summer. Hanna is looking forward to their time together – so when Thomas invites his older brother, Friedrich, who is deeply depressed over the failure of both his business and his marriage, to join them, she is disappointed by the intrusion. Easygoing, charming, and talkative, Thomas seeks to counterbalance the cloudier mood with an impetuous frenzy of activity, but Hanna retreats into sullenness and retaliates by bringing in her nubile young godchild Augustine until things smooth themselves out. Augustine’s youthful sexiness has anything but a soothing impact on Thomas, however, whose adolescent impulses linger just below the surface.

When Bertha dies, her granddaughter Iris inherits her house and finds herself back in the home where she and her cousin used to play dressing-up in the summer holidays. While she wanders from room to room, she gropes her way through memories and things she had forgotten: What did her grandfather really do before he went to war? Which men were Bertha’s daughters in love with? Who ate his apple with the seeds?

While on vacation with her friend Evi, the attractive Anna meets the charming horse breeder Carlos Sanchez on Mallorca. Although she is happily married to the busy lawyer Frank Glaser, Anna allows herself to be carried away by a night of love with Carlos. Back in Munich, Anna is tormented by a guilty conscience. Before she can confess her infidelity to her husband, Carlos turns up unexpectedly at the Glasers' house. While Anna tries to persuade the enamored “Latin lover” to leave, Frank discovers his wife's infidelity and goes completely mad with jealousy ...