Directed by Giovanni Angela and based on a screenplay by Paolo Chiarini, the film Malik was released in 1967. It was made at the East German DEFA Studio, which produced newsreels and documentaries. The documentary is about the history and publications of the storied publishing house Malik-Verlag after its foundation in 1916 by Wieland Herzfelde, the brother of the well-known collagist John Heartfield. Herzfelde and Heartfield are both interviewed in the documentary.

The documentary depicts chronologically historical events in Germany, as well as various artistic movements and political opposition to militarism and the bourgeoisie. The brothers tell about the tasks faced by the publishing house in these difficult times in Germany and on the Dada movement in Berlin, for which they acted as mouthpieces. In 1939, Herzfelde attempted to work again as a publisher in New York. He published a special edition of the magazine Direction under the title Exiled German Writers. In 1944 he founded in exile the publishing house Aurora-Verlag with other writers, among them, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger and Heinrich Mann.