June 1940: Hitler launches tanks and troops across France, Belgium and Holland. Yet Germany is impoverished, has few raw materials, and no oil or currency. How did the Nazis manage to set off the cataclysm of WWII with little money and a weak economy? Based on the work of a new generation of French, British and German historians, our film takes an economic, industrial and financial approach to the Third Reich, exploring the inner workings of the Nazi system through key characters who have been overshadowed by history (Hjalmar Schacht, Dr. Georg Von Schnitzler, Fritz Sauckel, Erich Müller...). Thanks to 3D animation and rare archive footage, this film will reveal how the Nazis were able to weave their violent, racist views into every thread of the German economy, from large-scale industry to small businesses to agriculture, research and nance, creating a model whose main management tools were theft and mass murder, and whose ultimate goal was war and the destruction of Europe.

Early 20th century, in the Ughetto family's home village, Ughettera, Northern Italy. Life in the region had become very difficult and the Ughettos dreamed of a better life abroad. Legend has it that Luigi Ughetto crossed the Alps and started a new life in France, thus changing his beloved family's destiny forever. His grandson retraces their story.

At the end of the 1960s the post-war generation began to revolt against their parents. This was a generation disillusioned by anti-communist capitalism and a state apparatus in which they believed they saw fascist tendencies. This generation included journalist Ulrike Meinhof, lawyer Horst Mahler, filmmaker Holger Meins as well as students Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader.
Their protest against the state led to the founding of the Red Army Faction (RAF). Constructed entirely from copious film and audio material, the film describes – without commentary – their gradual transformation and increasing politicisation until they take up armed resistance; it also describes the reactions of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany at the time. Jean-Gabriel Périot’s award-winning short films make elaborate use of archive footage in order to create incisive commentaries on violence and history. Une jeunesse allemande marks his first feature-length film. His work offers an outsider’s view of the Federal Republic of Germany in the RAF era; it also provides a lesson in radical behaviour and society’s reactions to it that is alarmingly topical, although the circumstances may have changed. berlinale 2015