Eika Katappa

Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.

Fusing Shakespeare‘s tragedy with the Verdi opera, Schroeter's Macbeth is a fascinating television experiment shot entirely in a studio with several electronic cameras. As Schroeter would recall, "I arranged the Verdi music for a quartet of violin, accordion, piano and oboe, but modeled the rhythms on Argentinian tangos and boleros. The actors sang with horrifying, shrill voices.... The use of video allowed me to produce extraordinary colors.... Of all my films, Macbeth was most unwelcome: Audiences don’t like their Shakespeare to be presented in this way, but I do not differentiate between kitsch and culture...". - MoMA

Set in Hamburg's “Hell's Kitchen,” a waterfront milieu of gangsters, pimps, dealers and prostitutes, the story follows the attempts of an ex-seaman first to insinuate himself into the scene, and then to extricate himself from it. He becomes a small-time pimp, sending his naive girlfriend out onto the streets thinking she is financing their middle-class future. When he becomes involved with an old pal, Nil, he increases his criminal portfolio. But when he steals Nil's girlfriend and things heat up, he leaves for his sister's middle-class home in Berlin, where his attempts to fit in are doomed from the start. Returning to Hamburg, he starts a rapid decline that delivers him into the waiting arms of Nil, whose revenge is merciless.

Dr. Blum, a Jewish manufacturer, is falsely accused of a murder. Even when the real killer’s identity becomes evident, the state prosecutor refuses to accept Blum’s innocence.

Schroeter's virtuosic staging of the Oscar Wilde tragedy is a complex montage of image and sound, filmed on the grand steps of Baalbeck, the ancient Roman temple in Lebanon, and interweaving Lebanese and German folk songs with the music of Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Mozart, Bellini, and Donizetti. Elfi Mikesch, the cinematographer of Schroeter’s later films, designed the film’s sumptuous costumes. A contemporary critic for Le Monde wrote admiringly of Schroeter’s depiction of "the deadly struggle between dark Christian morality and luminous paganism.“

Schroeter’s film is a chronicle of Germany from the Nazi era until the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, centering on three women who search for a career as singers and dancers.

Two women–a literature professor and a painter–start to rely upon their friendship as an alternative to their unhappy relationships with the men in their lives.

Max Taurus, a sort of amateur detective, pursues the traces of general omni-present crime back to a partially demolished house. There, the remaining tenants try to gain pleasure and power from progressive abandonment in order to tear down their own conventionalities.

With the ascetic grandeur of Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Schroeter evokes the visions of Saint Joan, partly through unused footage of Darling and Caven pantomiming in his 1972 film The Death of Maria Malibran. - MoMA

Werner Schroeter's rhapsody of excess leaps from 1949 Cuba to contemporary France to points in between, while its feverishly shifting visual style evokes and parodies everything from kitschy Mexican telenovelas to silent French art films.

Having fathered an illegitimate child with his lover, Marie, feckless soldier Franz Woyzeck takes odd jobs around his small town to provide some extra money for them. One job is volunteering for experiments conducted by a local doctor, who puts Woyzeck on a diet of peas. This serves to drive him close to madness, and the discovery that Marie is involved in an affair with the local drum major exacerbates the situation. Pushed too far, Woyzeck resorts to violence.

A mentally unstable woman and her son move to a sprawling mansion in Portugal to grow roses.

After his release from prison, ex-convict Franz Walsch finds his way back into the Munich criminal underworld. His attentions focus upon two women, Joanna and Margarethe, as well as upon Günther, his friend who earlier shot his brother.

Technical draftsman Herr R. is a dependable guy. He gets along with his colleagues although his boss wants him to go beyond technical cleanliness to problem solving. He's a dutiful husband; his wife's a social climber and pressures him to seek a promotion, but they also share sweet moments. He's a caring father, helping his son with homework. His parents visit; his mother criticizes his wife. Old schoolmates drop by, as do neighbours. Some comment on his wife's expensive tastes. His promotion may be a long shot, especially after he gives a dull and tipsy toast at an office dinner. But why would Herr R. run amok?

Berta, a naive young maid, searches for love when the army engineers come to town to build a bridge.

Rosy, a 15 year old, escapes the protectory and finds shelter at Helens, a singer. But Helen's care is just temporary and soon new troubles find her.

An exploration of the cult of the genius, an anti-heroic figure who chooses to be a social outcast and live on the fringe of bourgeois morality.

Skoda is the son of a wealthy, overbearing banker and rather than put up with his father to keep a privileged lifestyle, he has chosen to ditch the relationship and drive a taxi for a living. The film follows Skoda on his nightly rides through the city, and though different characters come and go, Skoda meets a kindred spirit in the form of a teenage woman who finds her own home life equally difficult to shoulder. The two young people are gradually attracted to each other, and they end up one night in Skoda's room together. At that moment, the older woman that Skoda had been involved with opens the door and discovers his infidelity. Skoda is living in her house and driving the taxi she gave him -- her commitment was abundantly clear from the beginning. Pushed over the edge, the older woman commits suicide -- and Skoda is blamed for her death by her ex-husband. He swears to avenge her, and the hunt for Skoda begins.

The charm of the beautiful Jonny is of a frightening effectiveness on the women. He uses it to create his company which offers his talents to lonely ladies. His business is going great and he is getting rich. But will Jonny be able to provide quality services for a long time?

Tally Brown, New York is a 1979 documentary film directed, written and produced by Rosa von Praunheim. The film is about the singing and acting career of Tally Brown, a classically trained opera and blues singer who was a star of underground films in New York City and a denizen of its underworld in the late 1960s. In this documentary, Praunheim relies on extensive interviews with Brown, as she recounts her collaboration with Andy Warhol, Taylor Mead and others, as well as her friendships with Holly Woodlawn, and Divine. Brown opens the film with a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” and concludes with “Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide.” The film captures not only Tally Brown’s career but also a particular New York milieu in the 1970s.

In a dark and spare theatrical space, four characters use gesture, language, and movement to explore themes of desire and mortality.

A love triangle, accompanied by traditional German Christmas songs.

Peter F. Schneider's 1968 abstract political satire.

A tribunal interrogates, tortures and murders "witches" and "heretics" during the Inquisition.

Werner Schroeter's stunning split-screen short deals with what the director called "archaic, fundamental themes" of love and mourning.

An "adults only" retelling of the legend of Siegfried.

Carla is a different form of homage, in which Carla Aulaulu sings a song by Gitta Linds.

La morte d’Isotta is a passionate melodrama inspired by Richard Wagner and Comte de Lautréamont, with Schroeter appearing in a principal role.

One of Schroeter’s first experiments in choreography, as he stages actors in an empty room.