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Though he never actually worked in Hollywood, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who died in 1982 at the age of 36, was influenced greatly by Amercian studio films of the 1950s and the convention of melodrama (the link most often mentioned is Douglas Sirk). With actor-turned-filmmaker Ulli Lommel as host and guide (he appeared in Fassbinder's very first feature, Love Is Colder Than Death, in 1969), documentary filmmaker Robert Fischer conducts a tour of Hollywood today, pausing to chat with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and actress Hanna Schygulla # both charter members of Fassbinder's tight-knit stock company of technicians and players # as well as Wim Wenders, who found the toehold in the studio system that Fassbinder never had. The proceedings are liberally sprinkled with clips from Fassbinder's films, as well as glimpses of a theater company in Los Angeles that specializes in performing the director's plays. As Fischer makes clear, Fassbinder's influence on Hollywood is not only still being felt today, but is gathering a dramatic force that will serve to introduce his oeuvre to a new generation of moviegoers.

Jacques Rivette looks back (in 1990 and in 2004, right after releasing 'THE STORY OF MARIE AND JULIEN') on his unfinished quartet 'Senes From A Parallel Life'. Rivette talks about the two films that indeed got made: 'Duelle' and 'Noroit', and about the films that did not materialize on film. The biggest part of the interviews was handled by his lifelong friend Wilfried Reichart.

A fascinating and absorbing documentary about the making of Jerzy Skolimowski's cult favourite, DEEP END, which was shot in 1970 as a US-German co-production on location in London and Munich. The film's two stars, Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown, 23 and 17 years of age at the time respectively, meet for the first time in 40 years and discuss their on-screen and off-screen relationship in candid detail, while director/writer Skolimowski chronicles the production history from the writing of the script to the film's acclaimed first showing at the Venice Film Festival. Director of photography Charly Steinberger revisits some of the original locations and explains how he managed to shoot almost the entire film with a hand-held camera. Also on board are production designer Anthony Pratt, editor Barrie Vince, and actor Christopher Sandford, each of whom contributes his own version of how DEEP END was part of the sixties' "swinging London"; and at the same time tilted it on its head.

Utilizing archival and contemporary interviews (director, cast and crew), Jacques Rivette's 12 hour Out 1: noli ma tangere, and the shorter 4 hour Out 1: Spectre are examined. Clips of the films are shown as well, with some spoilers.

"The sadist's smile: Actor Karlheinz Böhm on Rainer Werner Fassbinder with special emphasis on their collaboration in "Martha" (1974), in which Böhm portrays a chillingly sadistic husband.

Two theater companies, a traveling circus and a music band join forces to stage a modern version of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui -- on stilts in a circus ring.