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German Cinema Classics

To mark the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Talking Movies has travelled to the German capital to look at how that momentous event affected film-makers.

To mark the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Talking Movies has travelled to the German capital to look at how that momentous event affected film-makers. The programme reviews Good Bye, Lenin!, a film which dealt very imaginatively with the impact of the wall coming down on one East Berlin family.

Talking Movies explores some of the other great classics of Germany's cinema. Presenter Tom Brook visits Berlin's famed Babelsberg Film Studio to enter the very soundstage where the legendary German star Marlene Dietrich shot to fame almost 100 years ago after shooting her portrayal of the nightclub singer Lola Lola in The Blue Angel. Through conversations with a group of distinguished critics and film lovers, Talking Movies also surveys other German classics, including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Head-On, and finds out how each film reflects the social and political undercurrents in German culture at the time they were made.

Release date:

23 minutes

On TV

Saturday 12:30GMT

Broadcasts