Controlled in turn by Austria, Romania and Russia, Czernowitz was once a cultural (and highly cultured) melting pot with a Jewish population comprising about half its total 150,000. These days, it’s quieter, smaller, less diverse, and again a source for exodus–though now for economic rather than political reasons. Among those journeying back to explore their roots and visit family burial sites are the U.S.-based writer Norman Manea, actor Harvey Keitel (whose segs are the least engaging), a Berlin cellist, and two middle-aged Viennese sisters. Their visits are variably painful or pleasant, provoking meditation on the concepts of home, native language and belonging.

Die Unbeugsamen tells the story of the women in the Bonn Republic, who literally had to fight for their participation in the democratic decision-making processes against men obsessed with success and drunk on office like real pioneers. Fearless, ambitious and with infinite patience, they pursued their path and defied prejudice and sexual discrimination. Politicians from back then have their say today. Her memories are at once funny and bitter, absurd and at times frighteningly topical. Intertwined with partially unseen archive excerpts, the documentary filmmaker and journalist Torsten Körner (Angela Merkel - The Unexpected) has succeeded in creating an emotionally moving chronicle of West German politics from the 1950s to reunification. The images he found unfold with such force that the cinema can be rediscovered as a place of political self-assurance. An insightful contemporary document that makes an unmistakable contribution to the current discussion.

Brown Babies: The Mischlingskinder Story tells the personal and painful stories of Afro-American-German Brown Babies in a world where biracial, bicultural children were unwanted, ignored and forgotten. Abandoned by enemy nations and their families. Brown Babies: The Mishlingskinder Story shows how these children overcame extraordinary obstacles and honors the African-American woman who fought to save their lives when no one else would. Many archival images appear courtesy of the AFRO American Newspapers Archives.

Swetlana Geier is considered the greatest translator of Russian literature into German. Her new translations of Dostoyevsky’s five great novels, known as the “five elephants,” are her life’s work and literary milestones. “The concept of transportation is not an adequate metaphor for translation. It is not transportation, since the luggage never arrives. I’ve always been interested in the losses. By what always has to be left outside that which has been newly created, the translation.”

This was recorded in the early 1990’s as an expose on Blacks in Europe. Ika Hügel-Marshall appears in this segment on Afro-Germans. This is a copy made from a VHS tape.

This epic documentary/drama about arguably the greatest German author of the 20th century is really fascinating. Watching Elisabeth Mann-Borgese return to the places of her childhood is quite a moving experience and you feel the wisdom and the experience this old lady can share with the world. And it is a great gift for all of us that she did so shortly before her death. What a great family story this is! Everybody does a tremendous job in acting their roles…. This mixture of historical movie and documentary is just about perfect and may establish a new genre.