Known for Acting
Georg Brecher, journalist and casual writer, leads a report into the uranium mining of bismuth. Under the impression of hard work underground and the encounter with the mates, Brecher rethinks his previous life. Ulrich Thein's film was created in the context of cultural political balding after the 11th Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED in December 1965, which meant a clear turning point in the youth and cultural policy of the GDR: numerous films, plays, books and music groups banned. The filming of "Columbus 64" also had to be interrupted and it took months for Thein to be let back to the film. Thein's arguments with his film to show the "revolutionary society development" in the GDR did not help, because after completion, his work fell victim to censorship: it was shortened, re-synchronised and offered after a unique broadcast in the GDR.
Two doctors, a German and a Czech brain surgeon, meet in a Berlin hospital, unaware of how fatefully they are linked by events from a dark past. A trip to a congress in Prague and an encounter with the wife of his Czech colleague force the German chief surgeon to rethink his previous life. The film deals with the explosive topic of the extent and causes of complicity in the crimes of National Socialism.
Berlin 1849: The democrat Adolf Glasbrenner, known as Brennglas, publishes the political satire magazine "Phosphor" on a shoestring budget. He plans to marry his lover, the actress Adele Peroni. But the plan comes to a standstill when Adele is to make a guest appearance at the reactionary Royal Prussian Playhouse. A democratic journalist marrying a court actress? Impossible! Together with his friend Pulecke, Brennglas tries to disrupt Adele's performance with a bachelor party...
This movie, directed by Richard Oswald, is based on the operetta "Les contes de Hoffmann" by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), which is a genial musical potpourri from various short stories and novels by the Prussian writer, composer, painter, lawyer and judge E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). While Hoffmann's literary work was longtime considered to be merely fantastical, it was finally researched, in the last years, according to its metaphysical background. Characteristic for Hoffmann's work is his life-long fight against rationalism and for the revelation of nature morte, culminating mostly in carnival-like scenes anticipating literary techniques only described in the works of Bachtin and Bachelard.
