With a good deal of German movies, both from the Berlin era, and after, TaipeiiFF offers great movies from that "Berlin era," showing the roots of the film as we know it now, and also a great image of the time.

For the festival, two of Slatan Dudow's movies were joined together. The first is the 1930 "Current Problems: How the Berlin Laborer Lives," which is a 12-minute protest video against the options the German laborers had at the time, and their living circumstances. It shows some quick shots with texts shown in between.

It is combined with "Kuhle Wampe: To Whom the World Belongs," which is a longer movie (54 minutes) with a small storyline. It can be perceived as a semi-documentary.

Kuhle Wampe is about a family from the labor class in Germany in the 1930's. It starts off showing shots of newspapers; how the unemployment rates were rising. Then we see how young men cross the city on their bicycles every day in search of work.

Still, it is without success, and one of the young men's family is shown at the dinner table. The father and daughter start a fight (the movie features sound) about how and whether to get work. The frustration is obvious, and the options limited.

The young man can't take it anymore, and jumps out of the window. To make the situation worse, the family wasn't able to pay their rent for more than six months, and they are kicked out of their homes.

From that moment on, the movie follows the daughter, Anna, who tries to keep her head up with all the setbacks. In the end, she is the one who goes to work, while her father doesn't do anything but complain.

Kuhle Wampe shows camera work that is well ahead of his time, and gives a great depiction of the time, as a good part of the movie plays inside a German apartment in the 1930s.

Also the movie provides a great image of the social and economic situation at the time. During the movie, characters discuss newspapers, and read the articles. In combination with their own lives, it portrays the image of despair all too well. For that matter, the movie was soon banned by the German Nazi regime until their fall at the end of World War II.

Kuhle Wampe has a tremendous way of depicting the German interbellum, when hyperinflations took place, and the economic situation was absolutely at the bottom. It also makes it more understandable how this is the period in which the frustration, pain and anger increased significantly to later on fuel the events that would lead to the Second World War.