Politics: Human Rights

Discover our hand-picked selection of films and documentaries that deal in depth with human rights. From inspiring true stories to in-depth analysis of global issues, you'll find fascinating insights into the challenges and successes of activists around the world. Each film is an opportunity to learn, reflect and be inspired.
  • The Investigator

    The Investigator

    Documentary, Independent

    2023

    1h.13min

    16+

    An ex-investigator of the Hague Tribunal searches for justice in the Balkans. He shows his mission and its influence on the collective memory.


  • Storm

    Storm

    Drama

    2009

    1h.45min

    16+

    The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is fighting with itself and war criminals from the former Yugoslavia.


  • Will My Parents Come to See Me

    Will My Parents Come to See Me

    Drama

    2022

    28min

    16+

    With destabilising gentleness, Mo Harawe recounts the last hours of the terrorist Farah before his execution.


  • Life on the Horn

    Life on the Horn

    Drama

    2020

    25min

    16+

    A creeping, almost invisible toxic waste catastrophe is taking place on Somalia's coast.


  • The Dream

    The Dream

    Documentary

    1987

    45min

    16+

    This poignant and thought-provoking documentary offers a unique and deeply moving insight into the lives of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.


  • My Wonderful West Berlin

    My Wonderful West Berlin

    Documentary, Queer

    2017

    1h.38min

    16+

    Romy Haag, Rosa von Praunheim, Ades Zabel and Udo Walz talk about their fascination with the dream destination West Berlin.


  • Candidates - Training in Stammheim

    Candidates - Training in Stammheim

    Documentary

    2020

    58min

    16+

    In Stammheim, right next to the old RAF prison, an educational center for future correctional officers is located next to the prison wall.


  • Welcome to the Dome

    Welcome to the Dome

    Documentary, Queer

    1992

    15min

    16+

    During the final prayer of the German Catholic Bishops' Conference in 1991, one of the most spectacular protest actions takes place.


  • Alice Schwarzer

    Alice Schwarzer

    Biography

    2022

    2h.16min

    16+

    Cinematic memorial to the highly controversial icon of the German women's movement who helped shape feminist discourse for over 50 years.


  • Room Without a View

    Room Without a View

    Documentary, Independent

    2021

    1h.13min

    16+

    Slavery has never ended. It has just assumed other names and ways to conceal itself.


  • Face the Wall

    Face the Wall

    Documentary, Independent

    2009

    1h.25min

    16+

    Victims of the repressive system in the former East German state give powerful testimony about the cruetly of the dehumanizing regime.


  • Justice 2.0

    Justice 2.0

    Documentary

    2015

    49min

    16+

    Contemporary witnesses from several European countries provide impressive insights into how the Iron Curtain shaped life across the continent.


  • The Family

    The Family

    Documentary, Independent

    2014

    1h.32min

    16+

    Survivors can also be victims in countries where injustice was the norm. Their compelling testimonies are featured in this insightful documentary.


  • Not in my Backyard

    Not in my Backyard

    Documentary, Independent

    2011

    1h.27min

    16+

    One of the biggest taboos in society is the rehabilitation of sex offenders. This film takes the offender perspective.


  • Amal

    Amal

    Documentary

    2014

    55min

    16+

    Ghadir, Mohamad and their five children never wanted to leave their homeland Syria. Now they are in Germany. The new beginning is not easy.


  • Nunca Más - No More War In Colombia?

    Nunca Más - No More War In Colombia?

    Documentary

    2018

    36min

    16+

    After more than 50 years of bloody civil war, the peace process in Colombia began in 2016, with an uncertain outcome.


  • No News

    No News

    Documentary, Independent

    2021

    1h.21min

    16+

    The shocking story of the sea rescue ship Lifeline, which was denied entry to a safe port for months.


  • Endphase

    Endphase

    Documentary

    2021

    1h.24min

    16+

    A war crime was committed in their home village and consistently hushed up. The two brothers search for clues leaves us stunned and angry.


  • Sag mir, wo du stehst

    Sag mir, wo du stehst

    Documentary

    2011

    30min

    16+

    The statements of former inmates of the Hohenschönhausen Stasi prison and former Stasi employees are contrasted here.


  • Moments of Resistance

    Moments of Resistance

    Documentary, Independent

    2019

    1h.39min

    16+

    This film places acts of resistance against National Socialism and current struggles in a historical continuity.


  • Where to, Miss?

    Where to, Miss?

    Documentary, Independent

    2016

    1h.23min

    16+

    A Delhi woman's rocky road to her own cab license.


  • Naomi's Journey

    Naomi's Journey

    Crime, Drama

    2017

    1h.32min

    16+

    Based on a true story: The film examines the German justice system and its structural bias.


  • Boy

    Boy

    Documentary, Icons & Media Art

    2015

    30min

    16+

    To pursue her dream of becoming a singer, an Afghan girl lives as a boy.


  • Learning to Milk a Cow

    Learning to Milk a Cow

    Documentary

    2016

    1h.4min

    16+

    At the age of 19, Raja was deported to Nazi Germany and was forced to do labor on a Bavarian farm. This documentary is her story.


  • Bacha Posh

    Bacha Posh

    Icons & Media Art

    2015

    29min

    16+

    In restrictive Afghanistan, there are girls who are raised as boys and this is culturally established.


  • On the margins

    On the margins

    Documentary, Independent

    2015

    1h.22min

    16+

    We accompany a Roma family in Macedonia in their laborious everyday life, marked by deprivation, humiliation and racism.


  • Alive

    Alive

    Drama, Independent

    2019

    1h.34min

    16+

    Sophie and Wolfram meet in the hospital and set off together on their final journey. Both are terminally ill with cancer.


  • Blue Eyed

    Blue Eyed

    Classics

    1996

    1h.33min

    16+

    An eye-opening experience about deep engrained behaviour we barley are aware of in our every day life.


  • Im inneren Kreis

    Im inneren Kreis

    Documentary, Independent

    2017

    1h.23min

    16+

    Iris P. was an undercover investigator who maintained close friendships and had intimate relationships with the people she spied on.


  • Counting Tiles

    Counting Tiles

    Documentary, Independent

    2018

    1h.26min

    16+

    "Clowns without Borders" bring a bit of joy to the refugee camp in Moria, Lesbos.


  • Erased, Ascent of the Invisible

    Erased, Ascent of the Invisible

    Documentary, Independent

    2018

    1h.16min

    16+

    30 years after the end of the civil war in Lebanon, over 17,000 people who disappeared are still unaccounted for. An unnamed artist searches them.


  • The Demon Disease

    The Demon Disease

    Documentary, Independent

    2018

    1h.22min

    16+

    In some of West Africa's traditional societies, mental illness and epilepsy are still seen as demonic possession.


  • Don't Shoot Me Mr. Taliban

    Don't Shoot Me Mr. Taliban

    Shorts

    2015

    7min

    16+

    A bearded man with a backpack gets on an airplane and a beardless man without a backpack simply does what a man has to do.


  • The Most Beautiful Country in the World

    The Most Beautiful Country in the World

    Documentary

    2018

    1h.41min

    16+

    A semi-documentary that follows a group of young migrants in Austria as they negotiate the maze of administrative procedures.


  • Foreigners Out! Schlingensief's Container

    Foreigners Out! Schlingensief's Container

    Documentary, Music, Dance, Theater

    2002

    1h.30min

    16+

    Christoph Schlingensief's provocative works are still highly topical even after 20 years.


  • FtWTF - Female to What The ...

    FtWTF - Female to What The ...

    Documentary, Queer

    2015

    1h.32min

    16+

    Six people talk about the absurd, the sad and above all the beautiful aspects of transitioning.


  • Walter Arlen’s First Century

    Walter Arlen’s First Century

    Biography, Documentary

    2019

    1h.34min

    16+

    Multifaceted portrait of the composer and music critic Walter Arlen, who musically processed the horrors of the Nazi era.


  • With God's Grace

    With God's Grace

    Documentary, Independent

    2016

    1h.30min

    16+

    At the age of 17, the Gambian woman Sadi fled from the genital mutilation. Through the Sahara, Libya and across the Mediterranean to Sicily.


  • Ants Pact

    Ants Pact

    Drama

    2014

    20min

    16+

    Teenaged sex worker Paul finds refuge with a stranger.


  • East of War

    East of War

    Documentary, Classics

    1996

    1h.52min

    16+

    The testimonies of former Wehrmacht soldiers collected by Ruth Beckermann are still horrifying today.


  • Thanks Dead Cat

    Thanks Dead Cat

    Comedy

    2017

    1h.24min

    16+

    Hobo Beate lives with her disabled child in a tent. One day, law enforcement turns their lives upside down. And so the journey begins.


  • The GDR Complex

    The GDR Complex

    Documentary, Queer

    2016

    1h.30min

    16+

    The moving life story of Mario Röllig, who fell in love with a gay West German politician in the mid-80s and was imprisoned for it.


  • 6 Jahre, 7 Monate und 16 Tage - die Morde des NSU

    6 Jahre, 7 Monate und 16 Tage - die Morde des NSU

    Documentary, Independent

    2017

    1h.16min

    16+

    An attempt to come to terms with the NSU's incomparable series of murders from the perspective of the victims' relatives.


  • Yves' Promise

    Yves' Promise

    Documentary, Independent

    2019

    1h.19min

    16+

    Filmmaker Melanie Gärtner looks closely at the fate of one family to illuminate the social structures that lead to flight and migration.


  • God is not Working on Sunday!

    God is not Working on Sunday!

    Documentary, Independent

    2015

    1h.22min

    16+

    After the bloody genocide 20 years ago, Rwanda made a remarkable turnaround, which was primarily made possible by the country's women.


  • The Invisibles

    The Invisibles

    Documentary, Independent

    2014

    1h.17min

    16+

    A story about the grind of examination and verifying in the German bureaucracy.


  • Zertifikat Deutsch

    Zertifikat Deutsch

    Documentary, Independent

    2009

    1h.30min

    16+

    More and more immigrants have been the landing in Germany since the 1950's. But it wasn't until 2005 that a new immigration law went into effect.


  • It Happened Just Before

    It Happened Just Before

    Crime, Documentary

    2006

    1h.12min

    16+

    This documentary tells the harrowing story of the global phenomenon of human trafficking.


  • China Blue

    China Blue

    Documentary, Independent

    2005

    1h.28min

    16+

    CHINA BLUE by Micha X. Peled is a prizewinning documentary that documents conditions at a blue-jeans factory in China.


  • The Peacekeepers and the Women

    The Peacekeepers and the Women

    Documentary, Independent

    2003

    1h.20min

    16+

    Militarization and prostitution: When peacekeeping troops moved into Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, trafficking in women quickly followed suit.


  • When I Dance

    When I Dance

    Music, Dance, Theater, Documentary

    2016

    1h.7min

    16+

    In Daniela Lucatos docu WHEN I DANCE, four dancers from Israel, Spain and Italy attempt to interpret the stories of refugees.


  • And There Was Fire in the Center of the Earth

    And There Was Fire in the Center of the Earth

    Biography, Documentary

    2013

    1h.18min

    16+

    How a Holocaust survivor and Dürckheim student became a pioneer of Zen Buddhism in Ecuador.


  • We Came To Help

    We Came To Help

    Documentary, Independent

    2013

    1h.27min

    16+

    Can good cause evil? This documentary investigates the effect of Swiss development assistance in Rwanda before the genocide against the Tutsi.


  • Rainbow's End

    Rainbow's End

    Documentary, Queer

    2005

    1h.15min

    16+

    The gay movement fought its way from the margins to the center of society. What battles still need to be waged?


  • The Fire, a Fowl And an (Un)Forgotten Past

    The Fire, a Fowl And an (Un)Forgotten Past

    Shorts

    2017

    12min

    16+

    Over a hundred years ago, "Togoland", now the Republic of Togo and part of present-day Ghana, was a colonial possession of the German Empire.


  • Fritz Bauer - Death By Installments

    Fritz Bauer - Death By Installments

    Biography, Documentary

    2010

    1h.38min

    16+

    Fritz Bauer was a public prosecutor, a leading investigator of Nazi history and a pioneer of German civil society.


  • The First Sea

    The First Sea

    Documentary

    2013

    1h.0min

    16+

    Two West Bank teen agers who, along with a group of other young Palestinians, are invited by an NGO to spend a day at the beach – in Israel.


  • The Freedom Last But One - Landscapes of Otto Dov Kulka

    The Freedom Last But One - Landscapes of Otto Dov Kulka

    Documentary, Independent

    2018

    1h.5min

    16+

    An historian who survived the concentration camps, Otto Dov Kulka grants insights into his long-hidden world of thoughts.


  • Mit dem Wort Wende

    Mit dem Wort Wende

    Shorts

    2009

    3min

    16+

    Filmmaker Juliane Henrich explores the term "Wende" (course change) by means of a speech by Christa Wolf, which she gave shortly before the fall of the ...


  • What the Wind Took Away

    What the Wind Took Away

    Documentary, Independent

    2017

    1h.15min

    16+

    Although they have lost everything through their flight, the Jesidesses Hedil and Naam fight for a dignified life for their families.


  • Little Alien

    Little Alien

    Documentary, Independent

    2009

    1h.34min

    16+

    Teenagers try to flee to Europe under life-threatening circumstances, hidden in trucks, where they become the hunted by the border authorities.


  • Democracy Is On!

    Democracy Is On!

    Documentary, Independent

    2015

    1h.22min

    16+

    On the right-wing fringes of the political landscape, ever-louder anti-European, anti-Islamic and nationalist voices can be heard.