Documentaries

One of ZDF’s main strengths are its high-quality documentaries, which are firmly anchored in several program slots. These programs concentrate mainly on topics from nature and science, politics, culture and society, and history from ancient times to the recent past.

The program brand “Terra X” has been occupying the Sunday evening 7:30 p.m. slot for many years now. Viewers are invited to set off on a journey of discovery into the past and to join in as important scientific and historical events in the history of mankind are presented and explained.

Every documentary needs a well-structured dramaturgy and a clear storyline, in which we are informed from the very beginning about the questions that will be explored during the program. Complex matters are communicated in a visual manner that is easily understandable. Over and beyond the popular-science approach, experts from the fields relevant to the subject ensure scientific correctness. Computer animation and atmospherically compelling reenactments serve both to illustrate the action and to draw in the viewer emotionally at the same time.

On Tuesdays at 8:15 p.m. it’s time for “ZDFzeit”, ZDF’s big journalistic “title page”. Each edition of the documentary format gives the viewer essential facts, background information and interconnections to the topics of the day – comparable with the title stories of the major opinion-leading print media. Clearly recognizable characteristics which do justice to the label “ZDFzeit” are incorporated into the aesthetic level of the films. The journalistic ambition applies both to substantial inventories of the big political questions of the day as well as to documentaries with recent-history and social topics. The relation and connection to present-day circumstances helps viewers to new insights and thus enables informed opinions.

The contemporary-history documentary has a firm place in ZDF’s program portfolio. It offers space for collective or personal recollections, confronts important events and developments of 20th-century European and international history, and takes us back to the historical roots of the present socio-political conditions. These programs generally include archive materials as well as interviews with first-hand witnesses and scholarly experts.

The news reports and documentaries on current domestic German and foreign politics stand out for their relevance and offer extensive background information on political events and questions.

The series “37 Grad” focuses on individuals and concerns itself with social and psychological themes in a very personal context. By showing just a few protagonists the program addresses the viewer in a very direct and emotional manner.

Details on the current program slots of ZDF, ARTE, 3SAT, ZDFneo and ZDF.info are updated regularly by ZDF Studios in the brochure “Factual Programming on ZDF.”