Eric Friedler

Rex Gildo’s songs and musicals made him very popular. His best-known song was “Fiesta Mexicana” from 1972. Rosa von Praunheim tells the story of his life in the context of the gay pride movement, the normative pressures of the Schlager music industry, and the profound changes currently underway.

The story of the fascist conman Fritz Julius Kuhn is as unknown as it is terrifying: Kuhn is a German immigrant who pretends to be Hitler’s deputy in the USA during the 1930s. He is at the top of the German-American Bund, a fascist organization of Americans of German origin. The followers of this association march in goose-step with swastika flags and in Nazi-uniforms thru New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. They gather in thousands in stadiums and sing the Horst-Wessel-song.

On June 1st, 2019, around 11:30pm, the shoot which represents a turning point in the federal republic falls. In the hessian small town Wolfhagen-Istha, the district president of Kassel, Walter Lübcke, is murdered during this night, while, just a few meters away, the annual carnival is putting the locals into a festive mood. It is DNA-evidence on the clothes of Walter Lübcke which leads the investigators on June 15th, 2019, to his presumptive murderer: Stephan Ernst. The previously convicted right-wing extremist Ernst gets arrested by a SEK unit in Kassel. A first background check reveals: Stephan Ernst was known to the security authorities, but they did not have him on their radar for six years. Now he is back. And a person is dead. The docu-drama “Schuss in der Nacht” („Shoot in the dark“) tells emotionally, and simultaneously factually, how the deadly attack on Lübcke came to be. It tells about the first far-right motivated murder of a politician since the era of national socialism.

Роуд-муви как режиссерский метод автора «Неба над Берлином» и «Париж, Техас».

Роуд-муви как режиссерский метод автора «Неба над Берлином» и «Париж, Техас».

Роуд-муви как режиссерский метод автора «Неба над Берлином» и «Париж, Техас».

The name of car manufacturer Carl F. W. Borgward is still synonymous with the West German Wirtschaftswunder. For hundreds of thousands the "Isabella" from Borgward is the first car after the war while Borgward secures thousands of jobs in Bremen. But in 1961, the company of the passionate constructor goes surprisingly broke.

A documentary about the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records and its German founders Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. As jews they had to flee Germany and the Hitler regime in the late 1930s. In New York they wrote music history with their record label Blue Note Records.

A documentary about the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records and its German founders Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. As jews they had to flee Germany and the Hitler regime in the late 1930s. In New York they wrote music history with their record label Blue Note Records.

A documentary directed by Eric Friedler.

A documentary directed by Eric Friedler.

A documentary directed by Eric Friedler about Jerry Lewis' never released movie "The Day The Clown Cried".

A documentary directed by Eric Friedler about Jerry Lewis' never released movie "The Day The Clown Cried".

Germany's most popular punk rock band "Die Toten Hosen" ("The dead pants") celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2012. In his film "Nichts als die Wahrheit - 30 Jahre Die Toten Hosen" ("Nothing but the truth - 30 years Die Toten Hosen"), established documentary filmmaker Eric Friedler succeeds at presenting an interior view of a band that evolved from an enfant terrible to a pop culture icon and whose work mirrors German history. Friedler takes the audience on a two-hour long roller coaster ride about success and failures.

2010 documentary film on the Armenian Genocide by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It is based on eyewitness reports by European and American personnel stationed in the Near East at the time, Armenian survivors and other contemporary witnesses which are recited by modern German actors.

Berlin 36 is a 2009 German film telling the fate of Jewish athlete Gretel Bergmann in the 1936 Summer Olympics. She was replaced by the Nazi regime by an athlete later discovered to be a man. The film is based on a true story and was released in Germany on September 10, 2009. Reporters at Der Spiegel challenged the historical basis for many of the events in the film, pointing to arrest records and medical examinations indicating German authorities did not learn Dora Ratjen was male until 1938.

A documentary describing the role of the Quandt family businesses during World War II.

A documentary describing the role of the Quandt family businesses during World War II.

The film explores the impact of LEMON POPSICLE, a 1978 Israeli coming of age comedy about the sexual revolution and free love which subsequently found enthusiastic fans all over the world. From Japan to Germany, a young public fell for the off beat story of three boys and their first romantic encounters with few realizing that they were watching a new and profoundly different narrative from Israel. LEMON POPSICLE brought the producers (the notorious Golan and Globus cousins with their company Cannon Films) and the director to Hollywood. But the film, coined by the rather explicit sexism of the time, also left a number of the actors feeling traumatized over time as they performed in a series of internationally successful but increasingly mediocre sequels over the span of ten years. The documentary captures the grind of a never ending film production and the heady exhilaration of youth in a young country.