Joschka und Herr Fischer (2011)

He was a student activist, an urban guerrilla, a taxi driver; Joseph "Joschka" Fischer emerged from the Extra-parliamentary Opposition (APO) to become Hessen's trainer-clad environment minister and Germany's suited and booted foreign minister. Director Pepe Danquart follows Joschka's colorful life through six decades of postwar Germany from the phony fifties, to the wild APO days, through the "leaden times" of RAF-terror and on to the advent of the anti-nuclear movement and the birth of the Green Party, then all the way up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany's first red-green coalition. Danquart's film is a time machine hurtling through the decades with Joschka at the helm gazing out--often in astonishment--at the epochs that shaped him, as he did them. JOSCHKA AND SIR FISCHER reaches far beyond biographic narrative. Oscar-winning director Pepe Danquart («Black Rider», «Hell on Wheels», «To the Limit») presents an entertaining and insightful exploration of postwar Germany including previously unseen footage. He depicts the country's long search for democracy and her struggle to shake off the horrors of the past. Joschka Fischer's thoughtful and often self-depreciating responses when confronted with provocative scenes from Germany's history as well as his own, invites us to see him in a new light. Joschka made history; there's no doubt about it. But it was Germany's own unique history, which paved the way for a career such as his. By inviting Joschka's contemporaries in front of the camera--e.g. actress Katharina Thalbach, European MP Daniel Cohn-Bendit, as well as Fehlfarben band members--Danquart rounds off his documentary with a controversial and entertaining kaleidoscopic retrospective of "those breathless days" gone by.