Apocalypse series such as "Fear the Walking Dead" have shown us all too distressingly that, in the face of the apocalypse, stockpiling may secure your own supplies in the short term, but in no way offers protection against the actual threat. And an end-time classic like “Contagion“ already preached ten years ago that hand hygiene and face masks are essential if a global pandemic is to be contained. In "Fiction for Future", we ask old masters of the genre such as Roland Emmerich, Terry Gilliam and Frank Schätzing what the nightmarish tales of doom tell us about the horrors of our future. How will global challenges such as climate change and pandemics change our lives? Can we master the major challenges of our future? And if so, how?

In the 17th century, the Netherlands experienced an unprecedented artistic explosion: painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals were so prolific that they were able to make a living from their talent alone; so much so that, within a prosperous society, thanks to wealth from overseas colonies and financial speculation, collecting works of art became a status symbol.

In 1916, the name of the French fortress town of Verdun came to symbolize the greatest battle of attrition of all time - a portent of mass death on the battlefields of the 20th century. Based on selected individual fates, the film "The Hell of Verdun" tells the story of a military inferno in which people were regarded as material, not as individuals. More than 700,000 soldiers, German and French, died, were wounded or remained missing, without the course of the front changing significantly.

An account of the life and work of controversial German orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89), celebrated as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.

A portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), a genius of modern architecture, whose life passed between glory, scandal and tragedy.

A look back over nine years of the Syrian Civil War, an inextricable conflict, like a black box, due to the competing interests of the many factions in presence and those of the foreign powers.

A look back at one of the biggest espionage cases of the post-war period, which in 1974 led to the resignation of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt.