Movies: Michael Ballhaus

The production of a film requires recording equipment and financial resources if nothing else. Hellmuth Costard places these basic prerequisites at the centre of his film: using a Super 8 camera system he developed, he films himself as he tries to ra...

A group of people from the wealthy middle class in engage in quasi intellectual quarrels and discussions trying to find some meaning in their comfortable and indolent life. Adaptation of the play by Maxim Gorky....

A documentary about the making of director Martin Scorsese's 1993 film adaptation of Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Age of Innocence. It features a conversation between Scorsese and the star of the film, Daniel Day Lewis, as well a...

A retrospective look at the making of "World on a Wire"....

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Documentary film....

The bandoneon player Daniel and the boxer Toni arrive independently from each other in a provincial town in Latin America where they are booked to perform at a folk festival. Both of them are completely apolitical but are forced by external circumsta...

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A documentary about the life of Karlheinz Böhm from his film career to his charity activities in Ethiopia....

The intertwined lives of people of both Polish and German extraction who live on the pre-World War II border between the two countries are explored in this drama. Valeska is the Polish/German matriarch of a family living on the German side of the bor...

Film extras take possession of a bogus film production company and acting as ideal world of film to persuade one associates mother-in-law of marriage....

The main characters in this film are wives of rich men who have nothing to do because they have staff – like the cook, the maid, the hairdresser, the manicurist, the governess, the teacher, the tailor etc. – who work for them. Naturally, the wives th...

A small carnival is in dire financial straits. Their show is attracting fewer and fewer paying customers, as their "attractions" are ageing, out of shape and beset by internal feuds and bickering. One day a beautiful young woman shows up and suggests...

This absolutely top-notch documentary by Robert Fischer is a fascinating look back at not just the film in question, but Fassbinder's meteoric career which ended all too soon with his untimely death. Archival footage of Fassbinder is utilized (includ...

When Hitler watches Marlene Dietrich in a movie, he falls in love with her. He persuades her to come back to Germany to be with him, but upon her arrival she constantly insults and provokes him until he eventually, on her command, bites the carpet to...

A commissioned work for a television series on WDR, A House for Us. FROM THE FAMILY OF REPTILES and THE ISLAND are a complete program in two episodes. After all with Michael Ballhaus as the cinematographer. Ute (Katja Wulff), an 8 year old girl, con...

A couple (Karin Thome and Eberhard Klasse), whose relationship can't hold up to the pressure of their financial and career problems, only have their child left as the remaining connecting link. But even their child becomes a pawn in their egoistic po...

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A commissioned work for a television series on WDR, A House for Us. FROM THE FAMILY OF REPTILES and THE ISLAND are a complete program in two episodes. Monika manages to convince Mr. and Mrs. Hagedorn that their daughter is not mischievous or insidio...

The true story of Adele Spitzeder, who started her own private bank in 1870s Bavaria by promising everyone that gave her money high interest rates. Initially dubbed the "Angel of the poor", she was arrested for fraud after the whole scheme collapsed....