Beetz Brothers Film Production

Startups are using AI to create avatars that allow relatives to talk with their loved ones after they have died. An exploration of a profound human desire and the consequences of turning the dream of immortality into a product.

A deep dive into the hidden industry of digital cleaning, which rids the Internet of unwanted violence, porn and political content.

A cruise ship and 3,000 men – it is a universe without heteros and women that usually remains a mystery to the outside world. Once a year the Dream Boat sets sail for a cruise exclusively for gay men where most passengers are united by the wish to live life authentically as themselves in a protected place.

In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition headed for the South Pole and disaster. Shackleton's Captain reveals the truth behind the spectacular survival of all the crew and shows how one man's extraordinary skill and unsung heroism made it possible: Frank Worsley, Captain of the expedition ship, Endurance.

At the bottom of the world is a place of wild isolation. Antarctica. Its vastness and extremes defy description. From volcanoes to glaciers... and peaks that scrape the sky, its geography is like nothing else in the world. Its wildlife embraces harsh, alien landscapes. And the people that make their home there for part of the year survive amidst unbelievable conditions, thanks to some of the most creative problem-solving on the planet. Filmed principally in the Sub-Antarctic and Ross Sea region as a series of vignettes - each based around one astonishing location after another - viewers will explore one of the most remote, and least-visited parts of the continent; less than 500 tourists make the journey to this region each year. Few places on earth capture the imagination like the great white continent. Now see it as it’s never been viewed before.

A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...

After 30 years of conspiracy theories and myth making, this film uncovers the story of the CIA's most extensive clandestine operation in the history of modern warfare: The Secret War in Laos, which was conducted alongside the Vietnam War from 1964 -1973. While the world's attention was caught by the conflict in Vietnam, the CIA built the busiest military airport in the world in neighboring and neutral Laos and recruited humanitarian aid personnel, Special Forces agents and civilian pilots to undertake what would become the most effective operation of counterinsurgency warfare. As the conflict in Vietnam grew, the objective in Laos changed from a cost effective low-key involvement to save the country from becoming communist into an all-out air war to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and bomb Laos back into the Stone Age that it had never really left in the first place. Conventional bombs equivalent to the destructive power of 20 Hiroshima-type weapons fell on Laos each year - 2 million tons

Documentary following the new board of FC Barcelona as they attempt to turn around the club's business performance.

When Gaia the bear kills Andrea Papi in Trentino, Italy, the region’s inhabitants sound the alarm: could the tragedy have been avoided? Gaia is one of several problem children from a “troublesome bear family.” Her brother Bruno achieved questionable fame in Germany and met his death there. Can humans and bears coexist at all in the densely populated Alpine region?

Khalo Matabane spent two years making the film, interviewing those who knew and loved Mandela, and also those who criticised him. Global thinkers, politicians and artists including the Dalai Lama, Henry Kissinger and Ariel Dorfman talk about the effect of his policies and his decision making. Their thoughts are weighed equally with ordinary South Africans like Charity Kondile, who refuses to forgive her son's apartheid operative murderer. Through these interviews, completed in the last months of Mandela's life, Matabane interrogates for himself the meaning of freedom, reconciliation and forgiveness. By doing so he challenges Mandela's enduring impact in today's world of conflict and inequality. Thought-provoking and reflective, Mandela, the Myth and Me is a moving film which frames Mandela from a fresh, deeply personal perspective. (Storyville)

The Chinese philosophy of the Five Elements postulates that everything in our universe is based on wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. While traveling through China’s stunning landscapes and witnessing the seasons, this documentary seeks not only the roots of this ancient theory but also the continuing impacts on modern China.

This documentary tells the story of great love, bitter disappointments and self-doubts - but most of all of courage. The courage to take risks, try something new and be yourself - no matter what age. The film dives deeply into the exceptional and heart-warming stories of a group of transsexuals and drag queens in their sixties and seventies, who summon up their bravery to take to the stage one last time. For two years they have been touring in five continents, basking in the success of a spectacular show called "Gardenia", directed by Alain Platel and Frank Van Laecke. Now, as the show comes to a close, the glamorous aging performers must leave the limelight and go home to the quiet lives they left behind.

GAZA brings us into a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict. Throughout its entire history the Gaza Strip has been witness to conflict and upheaval. From ancient times this tiny coastal territory, located at a crossroads between continents, has been a pawn whose fate rested in the hands of powerful neighbours.

The story of how Aurora Mardiganian (1901-94), a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (1915-17), became a Hollywood silent film star.

It is an unknown chapter of the German post-war history: On April 23rd, 1949, the kingdom of the Netherlands occupied German soil as a pledge for demanded war reparations. Part of the annexed territories was also the small municipality of Elten. While the people of Elten were initially afraid of the occupation, the time “with Holland” actually became a miracle of prosperity and economy about which many people from Elten still rave today. The occupation period ended with the largest organized smuggling in the history of the federal republic of Germany. The Documentary shows this in never before released 8 mm footage!

August 1942: Amidst the unimaginable suffering inflicted during the blockade of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht, an orchestra director was given an almost impossible task: to stage the premiere of Dimitri Shostakovitch's "Leningrad Symphony". The performance became a symbol of the brief triumph of culture over the barbarism of war.

There are landscapes that hardly anyone has entered or seen: this film takes the viewer through New Zealand from the southern edge to the northernmost tip. High-quality images from the air, on land and in the water bring paradise to the other end of the world.

April 1945. In a dramatic operation the SS transports 139 special prisoners, and kin of the prisoners, into the Alps. The plan: to use the prisoners as bargaining chips in possible negotiations with the Allies. During the journey a number of prisoners plan their escape and experience six days between liberty and death, their fates in the hands of ruthless and increasingly nervous criminals. But the hostages band together and turn the tables with a clever ploy: they call in the Wehrmacht to aid them…