Christoph Valentien

The amazing story of electronic music: its epic journey from its origins in Europe, at the hands of the great artists of the post-war classical avant-garde, to the great post-industrial cities of the USA, where this genre of genres took over music stores, shady clubs and, eventually, the big stages.

ARTE documentary about a stage director Robert Wilson.

Turkey's history has been shaped by two major political figures: Mustafa Kemal (1881-1934), known as Atatürk, the Father of the Turks, founder of the modern state, and the current president Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, who apparently wants Turkey to regain the political and military pre-eminence it had as an empire under the Ottoman dynasty.

One of the first US born conductors to receive worldwide fame, Leonard Bernstein is an exceptional composer and certainly not only due to The West Side Story. Instead of concentrating exclusively on his most famous work, Thomas von Steinaecker sets out to paint a complete picture of Bernstein. Thus, the documentary focusses on the American’s less known later works and on three compositions in particular: his Mass, the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the great final opera A Quiet Place. The film paints a vivid picture of the multitalented Bernstein, struggling with his role as composer and conductor, tackling the tension between successes and flops, between the politics of his time and his own liberal humanitarian claim. It looks back on Bernstein’s major achievements, such as his acclaimed conducting of Mahler and his involvement in the Young People’s Concerts, and it shows Bernstein’s work with young aspiring musicians as well as his political commitment.

This film begins with black women dancing and black men expressing their praise: They are praising Austria. For over ten years, the 'alpine republic' has been cooperating with the ten parched Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic Ocean near the west coast of Africa. In total, seven completely different projects are presented and evaluated critically. In passing, the viewer also learns something about the country and its people: Young people curse the beautiful archipelago, calling it a hole, a prison, hell... They are unable to find work. The individual character of the Austrian projects enable the cinematic discussion of some basic concepts of development politics. This film takes a look, both affectionate and critical, at a distant and exotic country which comes closer to us the longer The Meeting of the Islands lasts.