Pause is also known for his portrait documentaries, whose subjects are usually football players, but also include the actor Michael Jäger (an ex-hooligan who starred in the early-evening soap opera Marienhof).
The first investigative TV documentary on the subject to gain traction, it featured the stories of LGBTQ+ athletes like Tanja Walther and Anouschka Bernhard, who are both lesbians, and referee Marie Karsten, who is transgender.
The Great Taboo (2008) won the 2008 Felix Rexhausen Award from the Association of Lesbian and Gay Journalists (Bund Lesbischer und Schwuler Journalistlnnen, or BLSJ, the German affiliate of the NLGJA).
[2] The judges described it as an "honest, dispassionate stock-taking" of the LGBTQ+ experience for athletes in Germany "...[a]s informative as it is sober... [which] subtly reveals how widespread anti-gay feeling is in the world of football--on every level."
In 2009, Pause and DSF released the second installment of the three-part series, Breaking Taboo: The New Progress of Homosexuality in Football (2009).
The film follows professional athlete Thomas Broich's career from its auspicious beginning in the Bundesliga up until his transfer to Brisbane Roar, an Australian club, in 2010.
On August 21, 2012, Tom Meets Zizou (2011) gained additional popularity when a 90-minute version was broadcast on the German station WDR.
The film also takes a look behind the scenes at the teachers' training program of the German Football Association (DFB) led by Frank Wormuth.
Established coaches like Jürgen Klopp, Hans Meyer, Armin Veh, Mirko Slomka, Peter Neururer, Thomas Schaaf and Michael Oenning also provide extensive insight.
The film then toured Germany with the support of the DFB Cultural Foundation and distributor Mindjazz Pictures, garnering praise from the press.
In early June 2018, Pause released the documentary series Being Mario Götze - A German Football Story for the streaming service DAZN.
[20] On August 9, 2019, the four-part documentary series was released on Amazon Prime Video under the title Inside Borussia Dortmund.
[21] In the series, Pause follows coaches, players and protagonists of Borussia Dortmund throughout the second half of the 2018-2019 Bundesliga season, providing insights into club life and the team.
The six-part documentary series unfolds over the course of nine years, following Bernhard Zünkeler, an artist, curator, and former business lawyer.
Pause documents Zünkeler's journey establishing the ESMoA art lab and various artist collectives such as Freeters.
[24] The nine-part documentary series follows the life and experiences of Jens Spahn (a German politician, Bundestag member, and former Federal Minister of Health).
In addition to Jens Spahn, the series features other politicians (Annalena Baerbock, Dietmar Bartsch, Gerhart Baum, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Kevin Kühnert, Armin Laschet, Karl Lauterbach, Christian Lindner, Friedrich Merz, Claudia Roth, Wolfgang Schäuble, Edmund Stoiber), journalists (Bettina Gaus, Eva Quadbeck, Robin Alexander, Markus Feldenkirchen, Hajo Schumacher, Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim) and comedians (Max Giermann and Oliver Welke).