The Goethe-Institut’s language courses are currently experiencing a boom worldwide. Around 200,000 people are learning German in the 159 institutes located in 98 countries – more learners of German than ever before. Director Maren Niemeyer saw this trend as an opportunity to explore how and why the German language is asserting itself today in the digitally globalised world. The film crew travelled across every continent, from Spain to Russia and Vietnam, from Ethiopia through Bavaria and Berlin to Silicon Valley in California. They met people whose motivation behind learning German was as varied as their origins. The 87-minute documentary recounts the moving story of teaching German as a foreign language from 1951 until today, using fascinating archive material. The film follows the personal stories of the protagonists and describes the learning methods of the previous decades using film clips taken from historical films, while exploring the highly complex world of German teaching.

Planet Goethe –DVD:

DVD 1 (duration147 min.)
IN 3965 Around the World with Goethe (Planet Goethe - 60 Jahre Goethe-Institut)
IN 3966 Planet Goethe - Warum lernen Sie Deutsch?

DVD 2 BONUS FILMS (duration 113 min.)
The bonus material on this DVD consists of historical film clips. They present the cultural and language work offered by the Goethe-Institut in different countries and eras.
IN 3965 A Deutsch am Nil (GI Werbefilm)
IN 3965 B Lida lernt Deutsch (GI Werbefilm)
IN 3965 C Man Spricht Deutsch
IN 3965 D Doppelkonzert – Ein Franz-Josef Spieker
IN 3965 E Begegnungen – Aus der Arbeit des Goethe-Instituts
IN 3965 F Orff in Afrika

DVD 3 BONUS FILMS, LANGUAGE LEARNING FILMS (duration 180 min.)
The bonus material on this DVD consists of language learning films and various episodes showing language courses offered by the Goethe-Institut from the 60s until the 80s.
IN 3966 A Guten Tag (language course, episodes 1-6)
IN 3966 B Bremen (image film language course)

DVD 4 BONUS FILMS, LANGUAGE LEARNING FILMS (duration 144 min.)
The bonus material on this DVD consists of language learning films and various episodes showing language courses offered by the Goethe-Institut from the 60s until the 80s.

10.03.2016

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

2013

Production Year

2013

color

color + b/w

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Documentary

Topic

School, Science

Available Media

DVD

Original Version

German (de), English (en), Spanish (es)

DVD

Subtitles

English (en), Spanish (es), French (fr), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt), Russian (ru), Chinese (zh), Arabic (ar), German (de)