The film was made with the students of the University of Television and Film Munich and is a combination of docudrama, fictional reenactment, and experimental photography to show the birth of cinema in Berlin where Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil built a projector they called the Bioscop.

Max then solves the problem of transporting the film and can proudly present his life size projection of his brother for Gertrud.

He remembers the preparations for his own demonstration: Word of the groundbreaking invention has already gotten around in Berlin, and so many artists gather to let the Skladanowskys capture them on film strips in a beer garden.

The management of the well-known Wintergarten vaudeville company on Friedrichstraße got wind of it and want to offer the brothers a business deal.

In the present, Lucie Hürtgen-Skladanowsky, born in 1904 as the younger daughter of Max Skladanowsky, tells of her memories of her father, her uncles, her sister and the pioneering days of cinema.

In contrast, the Skladanowskys' strips consisted of Variété numbers shot in front of light or dark curtains, such as a boxing kangaroo or a serpentine dance.

The apparatus from Berlin called the Bioscop was ultimately inferior to the Lumières' invention because they could both record and play back with their Cinematography and were able to produce longer films.

In 1995, to mark the 100th anniversary of cinema, Wim Wenders and students from the HFF Munich made this film about the birth of the medium.

They decided against producing a documentary and in favor of a tongue-in-cheek narrative style that interpreted history rather liberally, because they wanted to honor the naive and unorthodox way in which the Skladanowsky brothers approached their invention.

The broadcast was preceded by an introduction by Wim Wenders as well as a complete showing of the historical variety films screened at the winter garden at the time.

"[3] There are documentary segments as well where Lucie, Max’s youngest daughter, then in her early nineties, is interviewed and answers questions quite candidly about her recollections.

Emotional flourishes ranging from shock, suspense, disappointment, depression, fulfilment, joy, and triumph from tragedy.