Somewhere high in the Alps, a lone rider makes his way along a hidden path and reaches a small village, tucked away between the steep mountains. This stranger goes by the name of Greider; nobody knows where he’s from and, met with blatant distrust, nobody wants him in the village. The sons of Old Brenner, the village patriarch who holds the entire community under his threatening, violent ways, would have chased him away if Greider hadn’t given...

Post-Milosevic Belgrade is the capital of a nation struggling to find its soul, of a country whose turbulence has left many in a moral and existential desert. This is the home of Mladen, his wife Marija and their son Nemanja. When Nemanja develops a serious heart condition, the doctors urge an expensive operation abroad. Just when the boy s parents give up hope of raising the money, a man contacts Mladen and offers to pay the whole amount; in exchange,...

Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966) was a film critic and independent sociologist and theorist. He is the author of The Mass Ornament and Theory of Film (Princeton). Leonardo Quaresima is professor of film history and criticism and director of cinema studies at the University of Udine. An essential work of the cinematic history of the Weimar Republic by a leading figure of film criticism First published in 1947, From Caligari to Hitler remains an...