Content from Praesens-Film

Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”

In the dense and murky woodlands of provincial Hungary, the search for a child murderer drags a once-respected detective into an all-consuming obsession enshrouded by irresolution and despair, even long after he has been taken off the case. What emerges is not a crime story, but a harrowing venture through the darkness of the human soul.

Glacier pilot Hermann Geiger flies over a four-thousand-meter peak in the Valais Alps and observes a glacier collapse. The next day, three rope teams climb through this glacier to Dent Blanche. However, Dr. Gruber, accompanied by his wife, a young engineer named Gisler with his girlfriend Monica, two young men named Charly and Roby, mountain guide Perren, and the athletic Englishman Puckle get caught in a storm. Due to the weather conditions, Gruber slips and drags the other participants down with him. His wife, who had stayed behind in a hut, alerts the mountain rescue service. The storm initially prevents glacier pilot Geiger from taking action, but he then risks a breakneck landing to rescue the group.

A policeman is not convinced that the prime suspect in a murder case is realty guilty and so decides to reinvestigate the case, despite the lack of co-operation from locals.

A sailor on leave meets a beautiful girl on the ski slopes of Switzerland.

The life of 20-year-old Nico from upper class Zurich is all party, sex and drugs when she meets Paco, the front man of a rap band. She finds herself drawn to his independent, creative and profound way of life, so different from her own. With naiveté and infinite self-confidence, she tries to adopt his lifestyle - without anticipating the consequences.

The titular Marie-Louise is a young French lass who is evacuated to Switzerland when her country is overrun by the Nazis. Suffering a nervous breakdown, she is given comfort and shelter by a wealthy family. Unfortunately, living in the lap of luxury makes Marie-Louise hesitant to return home to her mother and war torn home. Eventually the girl comes to her senses, but it isn't easy.

In the 1770s, Swiss farmer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi established a school for poor orphaned children in the Aargau. Up to total exhaustion he sacrificed himself for his pedagogical theories. Five years later, the project of the idealistic educator failed after bloody attacks of the French. In retrospect, the disappointed Pestalozzi experiences the last few months with "his" children.

Oscar Bänz is a solid, middle-class taxi driver and widower. He loves his daughter Irma with all his heart. In order to provide for her, he has not remarried. Irma, a quiet, intelligent young woman, is studying medicine. To finance her education, Bänz rents a room to Toni Schellenberg, a young man from the countryside with a promising future as a soccer player. But the big city, easy money, and superficial friends cause Toni to neglect his training and evening classes, and eventually his employer fires him. Irma, who has fallen in love with the handsome athlete, asks her father for help. He is finally able to find Toni a job as a taxi driver. But when Irma attends a student party and also agrees to a date with the senior physician Dr. Zbinden, Toni feels neglected.

Florestan Mississippi, a public prosecutor by profession, visits a lady named Anastasia and, while drinking coffee with her, convicts her of poisoning her husband. At the same time, he asks for her hand in marriage, as he too has killed his wife with poison; the marriage is to be the "atonement" of the two poisoners. The four allegorical personifications in this comedy are, in addition to the loveless, absolute justice in the form of the prosecutor Mississippi, perfect equality, represented by the world revolutionary Saint-Claude, Christian love, embodied in the down-and-out, alcoholic tropical doctor Count Uebelohe-Zabernsee, and finally the "Frau Welt" of the old mystery play – Anastasia, who falls for everyone and betrays everyone, loves nothing but the moment, and dies with an invoked untruth on her lips.

In exploring sex offenses, particularly against children, this film reveals the inner workings of the Zurich police and INTERPOL as they pursue persons accused of voyeurism, rape, fetishism, sadism, and masochism. After the criminals are arrested and given psychological tests, they may be sentenced to an institution or undergo brain surgery (with their consent) in order to be rehabilitated.

Heidi, a young orphan girl living with her aunt in Frankfurt, is forced to move to the Swiss Alps to live with her ornery grandfather. At first, he resents her presence, but, after a short while, Heidi manages to pierce his gruff exterior, and the two become close. She also befriends a young shepherd named Peter. After three years, Heidi's aunt arrives and demands Heidi's return to Frankfurt.

When a young European woman assumes a false identity in 1920s Argentina, she gets more than she bargained for.

This film shows contrasting views of women with problematic pregnancies and the outcomes resulting when they seek out a back-alley abortionist, a trained and licensed abortion provider in a clinic, or an obstetrician capable of performing a Caesarian Section. The full film appears to be lost, but shortened versions, including one with dialogue scenes added in Germany in 1935, can be found on the internet. Additionally, Eisenstein's role in making the picture remains unclear: did he direct some or all of it, just edit it, or merely leave it to Alexandrov and Tisse to make? Released in the USA 1930 in a 65 minute (5800 ft.) version with English intertitles and a music track under the title BIRTH.

The search for a child murderer drags a once-respected detective into an all-consuming obsession.

Escaping a Nazi prison train in war-torn Italy, an American and a British soldier set out for the Swiss border and find themselves leading a multi-national party of refugees for the Italian underground.

The story revolves around the confusion that arises when a supposed gold discovery in Valais divides the village community. The plot combines elements of a cultural film about old customs in the Lötschental valley with a naive storyline that achieves a strangely powerful effect through its simple realism.

Soviet, British, French and American allies patrol post-war Vienna.

Gilberte Montavon was a legend in her own lifetime. As a young woman, she was confidante to hundreds of thousands of Swiss-German speaking soldiers during the First World War, and remembered most of their names. She was still a teenager when the war began, and was immortalised by a song written during the war years by the Swiss-German bard and lute player, Hans Inn der Gand.

If any one man is responsible for the rejuvenation of the postwar Swiss film industry, that man was director Leopold Lindtberg. Matto Regiert (Madness Rules) was co-adapted for the screen by Lindtberg from a novel by Friedrich Glauser. Heinrich Gretler stars as Police Constable Studer, the hero of several of Glauser's most popular works. This time, Studer must solve the murder of the director of an insane asylum -- and it's not (surprise, surprise) the most likely suspect, manic-depressive patient Herbert Caplaun. For box-office purposes, Matto Regiert stresses a romantic subplot involving Caplaun and nurse Irma Wasem.