19.01.2010 The Stasi File of Hans Kramer nominated for the 2010 History Makers Awards
On January 12th, the nominations for the 2010 History Makers Awards were announced, and Context TV is proud to have its documentary, The Stasi File of Hans Kramer, nominated in the category of “Best History Production.” The historical investigation by director Heike Bachelier into the relationship of a former secret service agent and the friend he spied on is the one hour tv version of her feature documentary “Enemy Engagement”. The film was produced with ZDF and French producer Cinetévé/France 3 and was supported by Medienboard Berlin and Filmstiftung NRW.
27.10.2009 „The Stasi Files of Hans Kramer/Dossier Stasi: Hans Kramer“ Airing on France 3 Sunday November 1st
Context TV is proud to announce that the French public television broadcaster France 3 will be airing the Context TV production “The Stasi Files of Hans Kramer” – “Dossier Stasi: Hans Kramer”. This historical documentary explores the repressive and authoritarian realities of the former East Germany through the investigation of one extraordinary interpersonal drama. We follow the friendship of Peter Wulkau, a dissident intellectual suspected by authorities of authoring a novel critical of the state, and Harmut Rosinger, a secret collaborator with the East German “Stasi” secret police force. Under the alias of Hans Kramer, Rosinger gathers and reports damning evidence to the Stasi which ultimately results in his friend’s imprisonment. With the aid of hours of interview footage from both protagonists and 16,000 pages of Stasi files, we reconstruct a powerful story of friendship and betrayal, of ideology and psychology, of long-suffered guilt and long-awaited redemption.
24.08.2009 The Ghostfleet of the Bikini Atoll - now available
After the very successful screening of “Paradise Lost” on Discovery Science, the next version of the Bikini expedition is now available for licensing. „The Ghostfleet of the Bikini Atoll“ is the most in-depth documentary account of the South Pacific island’s history since it was evacuated of inhabitants and used as the site of 67 nuclear bomb tests by the Americans between 1946 and 1958. This film focuses on the historic events and takes the audience to the sunken nuclear fleet littering the ocean floor off the coast of Bikini, catching never-before-seen footage thanks to two submersible vessels—MY OCTOPUS and the internationally one-of-a-kind PAGOO. The repercussions of the American tests in these seemingly pristine waters are explored in this film and brought to the screen in stunning HD and with cutting-edge CGI. Much of the historical material was unearthed by our researchers for this production has never been released—until now. A BluRay DVD with extensive bonus material is currently being created and will also be available soon.
20.08.2009 Amundsen Search Expedition for Context Production “Lost in the Arctic”
Set to Launch 24.08.09 with the Cameras Rolling
On Sunday, August 23rd at 2pm, the long wait will finally come to an end for the launch of the Amundsen search expedition. This major operation, run in conjunction with the Royal Norwegian Navy, Kongsberg Maritime AS, and the National Aviation Museum in Bodø, is the start of the main shooting for Context TV’s newest expedition documentary, following last year’s Bikini Expedition and the film “The Ghostfleet of the Bikini Atoll” (with ZDF and Discovery. On sale now.)
At a press conference hosted by the Royal Norwegian Navy that will be held at the Polar Museum in Tromsø, Norway, the details of the voyage will be outlined for the public. The Context TV producers and camera crew will be in attendance, with company CEO Daniel Petry sitting on the platform.
The spectacular expedition is part of a documentary directed by Rudolph Herzog that will tell the true story of the great Norwegian Polar explorer Roald Amundsen, uncovering the facts behind his disappearance while piloting the French twin-engine flying boat “Latham 47” in an attempt to rescue his rival, the Italian adventurer Umberto Nobile.
The expedition will be executed by two ships of the Norwegian Coast Guard that will depart from the harbour of Tromsø: KNM Tyr, a Royal Norwegian Navy craft, and its supply vessel, the KV Harstadt. Their destination: the area around Bear Island in the Barents Sea. From the first, Context TV cameras will be recording the action, with coverage carried out by satellite, giving audiences the opportunity to experience the expedition live on its website, www.searchforamundsen.com.
The final day of the operation will most likely be September 4th, and all partners eagerly await this historic expedition in anticipation of discovering the truth behind Amundsen’s disappearance. The film “Lost in the Arctic” will be shown in 2010 and available for purchase at the next MIP.
11.03.2009 The Context Line Up for MIP
HW Pausch (29.03.09 - 01.04.09) and Daniel Petry (28.03.09 – 03.04.09) will be at MIP with the following productions:
THE GHOST FLEET OF BIKINI ATOLL – The most comprehensive Context expedition film is now available for sale (Partners: Discovery, ZDF and VULCAN Productions)
THE STASI FILE OF HANS KRAMER – The real ‘The Lives of Others’ 20 years after the fall of the wall. Delivery this summer (ZDF Kleines Fernsehspiel)
WILDLIFE NANNIES SEASONS 1 & 2 – 44 x 30’ episodes of this exciting and touching family series on animal babies now available in HD (Sales with German United Distributors)
RETURN TO LODZ – a real treasure hunt by director Jurek Sladkowski (for ARTE, TVP, VPRO and others) – delivery in August 09
ROALD AMUNDSEN – LOST IN THE ARCTIC – one of the most exciting expeditions of 2009 on the tracks of the great explorer starting in August 09.
Further projects in development include the multi-part series HITLER’S WONDERWEAPONS.
24.02.2009 The Search for Roald Amundsen - press conference initialized by the Norwegian Navy with Context TV
Roald Amundsen was perhaps the greatest polar explorer as he was the first man to reach the South Pole in 1911. On June 18th, 1928, Amundsen boarded the Latham 47, a sea-plane bound for Spitsbergen to save his fiercest rival: Umberto Nobile, never to return. The Latham 47 is still not found.
In 2008, an advisory committee was founded which consists of representatives of the Maritime Combat Service & Support in The Royal Norwegian Navy (MARLOG), the Aviation Museum in Bodø, the Kongsberg Maritime AS and Context TV GmbH. In August 2009, this group of experts will embark on a large-scale naval expedition in search of Latham 47.
Yesterday a press conference was held in Bergen, Norway to announce the project to the world public. Both the Norwegian Navy and the Norwegian Coast Guard contribute one of their finest ships to the mission. Together, they will search for the wreck of Amundsen’s plane with a fully automatic sonar system in order to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of the legendary polar explorer Roald Amundsen.
Hitlers Wonder Weapons As the war effort in Nazi Germany began to lose steam, senior Nazi officials began funnelling money and resources towards the invention of the so-called “Wunderwaffen” – or “Wonder Weapons” – weapons so powerful as to turn the course of the war back in Germany’s favour. Although no such miracle ever came to pass, German engineers nevertheless produced hundreds of novel ideas for strategic weaponry, some of it far ahead of its time. Most of these designs, however, failed to see the light of day because of budget cuts and the rapid conclusion of the war. Now, with the help of military expert Steve Viper, we will did up the plans, models, and prototypes of these incredible killing machines – the behemoth tanks, the suicide bombers, the first guided missiles. Together with German artist and model-maker Holger Bull, Steve will build the weapons which never came to be and examine those which were deployed but ultimately discarded – discovering the mind-boggling potential of these super weapons and the practical faults that hindered their development.
Hitlers Sunken Treasures One of the most daring clandestine operations of World War II was the 1944 sinking of the Norwegian ferry Hydro with its cargo of “heavy water” destined for the Nazi’s secret atomic bomb project. Although the mission was declared a success, no one has ever established if the special shipment was actually on board. Context TV and Nova plunges 430 meters beneath a remote Norwegian lake to find the answer.
Between Gandhi and Hitler With all the twists and turns of a spy thriller, this new documentary charts the improbable but true story of the Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose. Once a powerful ally of Mahatma Gandhi, Bose split with the Indian National Congress (after serving two terms as president), extolling militancy, as opposed to non-violent resistance, as a means of forcing the British out of India. Seeking military allies against India’s imperial occupiers after serving twelve separate terms in British prisons, Bose chose to make a pact with the devil and abandoned Gandhi for Adolf Hitler.
The Stasi Files of Hans Kramer The Stasi Files of Hans Kramer tells a story from the GDR from three different angles: The dissident writer and his friend who secretly reported to the Stasi, the GDR secret police and was responsible for his imprisonment. 16.000 pages of Stasi files make the third perspective and reveal their own unique light on the story.
Return to the Bismarck She was a steel colossus. The world’s biggest, fastest and most robust battleship. The perfect fighting machine: The Bismarck was expected to turn the tide of the war in the Atlantic by intercepting and destroying the convoys along starving Britain’s essential trade route with Canada. After its first engagement, in which the HMS Hill, the pride of the British Home Fleet, was sunk, Churchill issued the famous order “Sink the Bismarck!;” spurring the British’s navy’s hell-bent pursuit and eventual sinking of the greatest German warship ever built.
Exercise Tiger Spring 2004: A submarine hovers a few metres above the sea-bed off the south west coast of England. The halogen headlights illuminate an eerie scene: the sunken remains of American soldiers, dead for 60 years. Helmets, machine guns, tanks, jeeps, boots. And the torpedoed steel hull of two American landing ships sunk by German E-boats on the 28th of April 1944. Here, deep below the surface, the silent witnesses of "Exercise Tiger", the top-secret final rehearsal for D-Day landings, are discovered.
Grissoms Gold In a region of the world long associated with the strange and the unusual, this new documentary follows the voyage of a team of scientists and adventurers in search of lost treasure in the deep waters of the Bermuda Triangle. Reputedly home to a lost cargo of Spanish silver and Portuguese gold, these waters are notoriously deep; at five kilometres below the surface, the treasure site lies at the outer limits of what today’s submersibles can reach.
Lost off Mozambique Lost for nearly four hundred years, the legendary silver treasure of Philip III, King of Spain and Portugal, returned to day light in May of 2005. In 1622 the Sao Jose, a royal ship with the silver aboard, had encountered English and Dutch ships off the coast of Mozambique, and after hours of furious fighting, the ship was sunk, along with its crew and precious cargo.
Shooting Under Fire Reinhard Krause is Reuters' chief photographer in Israel and the Palestinian territories. He decides which photos of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the world will see. The film follows three Reuters' photographers - a German, a Palestinian, and an Israeli - as they roam the frontlines armed with nothing but their cameras. Set in the Holy Land, we examine how difficult it is to report the truth in such a politically-charged region.
Astrospies Emerging out of the rubble of World War II as the sole two world superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union immediately entered into another conflict that would shape international politics for the rest of the century. In this Cold War, direct military conflict gave way to contests for international prestige, and no other contest meant more for the national confidence of both countries than the space race. Intent on becoming the first nation to reach space (and eventually control it), both the US and the USSR devoted enormous national resources to aeronautical research. Throughout the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, the Soviets convinced themselves and the world that they had taken an insurmountable lead in the race to space. However, events out of the public eye told a very different story. Recently released documents revealing secret military plans, cover-ups, and covert spy missions provide new insight into the internal developments that drove man to the final frontier. Join us as we explore the policies and personalities behind the Cold War’s secret space race.
Fat Machines Have you ever wanted to get behind the wheel of a dump truck?
Maybe take a submarine for a spin?
How about piloting a helicopter?
In our new series FAT MACHINES, we follow host Jürgen Vogel as he goes for a test ride in the biggest, fastest, newest, and FATTEST machines in the world, and he brings us along for the ride.
'Project' Alicia Building a submarine without the resources of a big shipyard and using parts acquired off the shelf or scavenged is an unusual idea by any standard. But Peter Robbins had dreamt of submarines all his life. So he staked everything he owned to make his dream come true, to build the „Alicia“, his own submarine and take it to see its predecessors: sunken German U-boats in the English Channel. In 2001, work began in a small warehouse in Plymouth. 10.000 single parts have been gathered and the time had come to turn them into a submersible capable of taking 5 passengers and 1 pilot. The project was meant to take 2 years.
What followed was a 4 year long epic struggle of constructing and testing the submersible with the worlds largest acrylic dome. In those 4 years Peter had seen bancruptsy from close more than once – but his determination kept the project alive and in summer 2004 he went for his first dive.
This is the story of project Alicia...
The Seaturtles of Mazunte Pacific Ocean, two miles off the shore of Mazunte, a small Mexican fishing village. With well-trained eyes Pepe spot a sea-turtle. Expertly, he jumps into the water and catches the turtle with his bare hands, a giant reptile weighing 60 kilos and belonging to the species Tortuna Golfina. Not long ago the animal brought him $2 per unit. In Mazunte up to 1.000 animals were killed and processed per day, constituting the country's biggest turtle industry. This unchecked hunting soon threatened the sea turtles with extinction.
