The Ministry for State Security - Everyday life at a public authority

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

In 2016, DEFA celebrates its 70th anniversary: the film embarks on a journey into the exciting film history of the GDR. In a comprehensive kaleidoscope, the importance of DEFA productions is illuminated, the relevance of the films as propaganda productions for the GDR, which socio-political themes were in the foreground, but also which heroes DEFA brought to the screen and celebrated as people from the people.

A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.

25 years after Erich Honecker's death, his personal secretary in Chile gives MDR an exclusive insight into the family's private archive. The material provides new background information on the dramatic escape story of the once most powerful man in the GDR, his journey to Chile and the dispute over Honecker's mortal remains.

The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.

The film accompanies Jenny Gröllmann, a German actress, during the last two years of her life.

A documentary that explores questions of secrecy and power in relation to the East German Secret Police (the 'Stasi') within East German society. The film is based upon key findings from an extensive research project, 'Knowing the Secret Police', and reflects upon how different kinds of knowledge were circulated through social, religious, political and literary networks within the former GDR. The filmmakers present this research with footage filmed at key locations throughout East Berlin and the wider surrounding landscape, including the Stasi archives and former HQ, Karl-Marx-Allee, Volkspark Friedrichshain, rural 'dacha' cabins, the urban neighbourhood of Prenzlauerberg and the social housing estates of Marzahn.

A retrospective look at the youth cultures born in the German Democratic Republic. A celebration of the lust for life, a contemporary trip into the world of skate, a tale on three heroes and their boards, from their childhood in the seventies, through their teenage rebellion in the eighties and the summer of 1989, when their life changed forever, to 2011.

Berlin, summer 1988: While Michael Jackson and Pink Floyd perform in the West, East Berliners can look forward to Bruce Springsteen, Depeche Mode and James Brown. The documentary reveals how the organizers enforced the concerts with the state authorities. On the anniversary of the fall of the Wall.

Was my father really a spy, as his file in the former East German Secret Service (STASI) suggests? This question marks the starting point of a son’s journey into his late father’s past which still remains somewhat mysterious even today. Eric Asch is looking for answers – in the Stasi archives, at the NSA and in his own family history. The result is a very personal documentary which reports ironically about the practices of secret service during the Cold War.

A documentary spy thriller that takes place during the Cold War but which gets its resolution today in the small village of Burträsk outside Umeå, northern Sweden. A deeply-believing priest, well-liked and respected by everyone or a ruthless spy who has no hesitation in referring his friends and colleagues to the dreaded security service STASI in the former GDR. Who is Aleksander Radler, the man with two different personalities?

Docudrama about life, career and breakdown of Erich Mielke, the former Security chief of East Germany.

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.