Genres and Film Topics in Germany

Documentary films provide an insight into the lifestyles and concerns of our own and other societies. They create a microcosm of the world while exploring wide-ranging themes through a variety of narrative approaches. No wonder they have been attracting growing cinema audiences over the last few years.

Documentaries are keeping audiences on the edge of their seats – and not just at the major documentary film festivals in Leipzig, Duisburg, Munich, Kassel and Oberhausen. According to the German Federal Film Board (FFA), the top 100 German box-office hits in 2004 included 15 documentaries. The German-British co-production Deep Blue led enthralled audiences – topping 800,000 – into the fascinating secrets of life beneath the oceans. Within weeks of its release, more than 300,000 people flocked to see the documentary Rhythm is it, which traced the progress of a motley crew of young people of all age groups and nationalities, whose experience of dance and classical music sent their confidence soaring and gradually forged them into an ensemble of their own. And in Hell on Wheels (Höllentour), more than 200,000 cinema-goers witnessed the torments of the Tour de France in horrified fascination from the comfort of their seats.

Pinpointing the personal

"Documentaries never vanished from German cinema screens altogether, but we have noticed a steady increase in audience figures for this genre over the last five or six years", says Thomas Frickel, chairman of the Independent Documentary Filmmakers' Association in Germany (AG DOK), which represents around 750 documentary filmmakers. One reason for the growing interest, according to this author and director, is the global impact of award-winning documentaries like Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. But Frickel also believes that audiences are disillusioned with their experience of television, with its superficial presentation of reality in short clips; in his view, cinema audiences are ready for a more intensive experience. Older audiences, too – vividly recalling the sometimes less than popular late-night screenings in off-cinemas in their student days – are reclaiming the big screen, and this target group is demanding to see films which are not shown on TV at all, or only in the small hours.

According to Thomas Frickel, the content of the new documentaries is extremely diverse and no clear trends are apparent. They cover "the full spectrum of life experiences". Documentaries are increasingly exploring the reality of people's daily lives and have become "more personal, more intimate" in recent years. This is evident from films such as Dancing with myself by filmmakers Judith Keil and Antje Kruska, which features a group of Berliners who gain self-confidence through dance, and which won the youth jury award at Germany's leading documentary film festival in Leipzig in October 2005. Their earlier film about a group of cleaners, Queens of Dust (Der Glanz von Berlin), was also a box-office hit in Germany. Then there is Bettina Braun's debut production Whatz up, (Was lebst du?) which stars a group of young people of diverse nationalities in Cologne; this documentary won the audience award at the Duisburg Documentary Film Week in 2004. Die Spielwütigen (i. e. The Players) by Andreas Veiel – who made a name for himself with Black Box BRD, a documentary about the Red Army Faction – takes the audience through the highs and lows of what it means to become a professional actor. Schattenväter (I. e. Ghost Fathers) by Doris Metz is an intimate exploration of recent German history, portrayed through the eyes of the sons of Willy Brandt and his aide Günter Guillaume. In the film, scheduled for release in November 2005, Pierre Boom and Matthias Brandt share their recollections of their fathers and describe how their teenage lives were suddenly disrupted when Guillaume was unmasked as a spy, forcing Willy Brandt's resignation in 1974.

The political film: still on the agenda

As Thomas Frickel points out, what has been in short supply in recent years is the political film "with bite". In his view, this is partly because there are currently no major social movements in Germany. But politics have not vanished from the German documentary repertoire altogether. This was apparent at the retrospective held at Leipzig International Festival of Documentary and Animated Film in October 2005, where screenings included the documentary portrait Starbuck – Holger Meins by Gerd Conradt (2001), which looked back on the life and death of this Red Army Faction member, Die Macht, das Öl und der Tod (i. e. The Power, the Oil and the Death) by Thomas Giefer (1996) about the murder of Nigerian author Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Kinderland ist abgebrannt by Sybille Tiedemann and Ute Badura (1997), in which women who graduated from high school in 1942 look back on their lives in the south German city of Ulm.

Around 50 documentaries are screened in German cinemas every year – and the growing audience interest is not only evident in Germany. The various "German Documentaries" series launched by AG Dok and the Goethe Institute have proved very popular in Russia, Egypt and elsewhere. A new series is scheduled for Japan next year, and according to Thomas Frickel "after Egypt … the rest of the Arab world is taking notice as well".