Acting
No biography available.
83 movies sorted by popularity
Fanny, a shy and lonely teenager, goes on a language exchange to Germany. In Leipzig, she meets her pen pal, Lena, a teenager eager to become politically active. Fanny is troubled. To win over Lena, she invents a life for herself, to the extent of becoming trapped in her lies.
A tragedy brings a mother, daughter, and teenage boy together. Struggling with blame and forgiveness, the unlikely trio take a trip to Tenerife for a family holiday that never happened. Under the glow of the sun, past and present quietly start to overlap.
Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.
A lighthearted look at the opening of the border crossing of Bornholmer Straße in Berlin from the point of view of the confused border guards.
The end of a summer, a sleepy fishing port on the Baltic Sea and the beginning of a great feeling that must not be: Shortly before the start of the new school year, the 18-year-old Christian falls in love with his new English teacher Stella Petersen. In a moment of unexpected lightness and freedom, in the dunes and seascape far away from the small town, Stella and Christian discover a shared longing and an attraction to each other, the intensity of which both overwhelmed. But soon after class has begun again, the secret relationship between the young teacher and her pupil threatens the scandal ...
Epic story about two families and their friendship and common destiny in Sweden's Gothenburg in the 1940s and 1950s. Told from the perspective of young Simon Larsson, who learns that he's an adopted child who has a Jewish father from Germany. After WWII Simon travels to explore his roots - a journey that leads to the basic mysteries of the human life. After the bestselling novel by Marianne Fredriksson.
An anarchist young woman breaks the tacit contract with civilization and fearlessly decides on a life without hypocrisy or an obligatory safety net.
“If the ghosts can visit our time, we can visit theirs”. This freewheeling tour of German history of the 20th and 21st centuries follows a postmodern artist back to her East German village birthplace – where a discovered skeleton opens up mysteries both personal and political.
Ambitious cello student Jessica receives an invitation to an international contest. A great opportunity, but at the same time it means enormous pressure. Stress begins to gnaw on Jessica's everyday life and soon reality and imagination blur.
Almost 15 years, the unequal sisters Mia and Susanne have not seen each other. But after her mother's death, Mia returns to her family. Problems are preprogrammed. But the fight for the family business and the memory of an old unfortunate pact connect the freedom-loving Mia and the family man Susanne.
The city of Ordos, in the middle of China, was build for a million people yet remains completely empty. Ordos is not so much a place but a symbol of babylonic hype. But nothing will change - as long as people believe.
In May 1828, a feral boy aged around 16 was found in Nuremberg. Kaspar Hauser, as he is called, can only speak a few indistinct words and knows nothing about his origins or family. The film depicts the - presumed - circumstances under which Hauser was held captive in complete isolation in a hiding place from infancy onwards. From this emerges the picture of an intrigue involving high circles of aristocratic society. Five years after his liberation, in December 1833, Kaspar Hauser died as a result of a stab wound inflicted by an unknown perpetrator.
Two policemen are stationed on Amrum, a North Sea island on the West coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’ – an elder, and one who is several decades his junior. Life is easy, just that the junior can’t find a wife, because no young woman seems to be interested in the peaceful life on the island. All of a sudden, a wounded lady who turns out to be one of two bodyguard for a threatened witness who lives in hiding on Amrum, bursts into the police station and seeks help from the two officers. I missed some bits of the plot, but somehow, the second one of the bodyguards hiding the witness on the island has been killed already, and the second one, seeking help from the local police, was wounded in the incidence, and then she apparently succumbs, too.
A snack bar owner smokes with his Muslim neighbor in the stairwell of their apartment building at night. Her husband is his good friend. They draw closer to one another as the nights go on and look out over the city to the dark satellites, the brutalist concrete buildings on the outskirts of the city - relics of the GDR past. A security guard watches over Objekt 95, a satellite town with a residential complex which many foreigners call home. While on patrol at night, he gets to know a young Ukrainian woman who fled her home country when the war broke out. He wants to protect her, while his friend, the “old security guard”, radios to him from an abandoned Russian barrack night after night. A woman from the train cleaning service drinks in a train station bar after her night shift. There, she meets a hairdresser. The two of them become friends and spend many nights together in the station. Every night, her desire grows even greater for this woman who is exactly as lonely as she is.
Hans Wolgast is executed with a shot in the head in the idyllic town of Husum to Mozart's Magic Flute. His half-brother, Inspector Anton Glauberg, immediately suspects that the shadows of the family past have caught up with him because Hans was a member of the RAF. Without initially disclosing that he not only knew the dead man but was even related to him, Glauberg begins to investigate, supported by the young, attractive but inexperienced BKA officer Paula Reinhardt. The traces lead to Berlin to the scattered remnants of the RAF and its still functioning cable groups. Wolgast lived there in a shared apartment before he, like so many former terrorists, fled to the GDR in the 1980s. A former roommate of Hans Veith Seewald points out the parallel to Glauberg to a murder case from 1978.
Maja Wegner is in her late thirties and a single mother of a teenage daughter. To give her stale life a new direction, she decides to start all over again in the big city. She sells her house in the countryside, quits her job, and moves with her daughter to Berlin. There, she finds a job as a conductor for the railroad company. Although Maja soon finds new friends in her apartment building, the search for a new life partner does not come off so easily.
Clara is studying for a Ph.D in philosophy in Berlin. In this middle-class male academic environment, she feels pushed to one side. She returns to her childhood village in former East Germany for her mother's birthday, and becomes aware that a distance has grown between her and her family.
1942. The members of the Voß family, mother, two daughters, a daughter-in-law, and a son-in-law, are living in a house at the river. A fellow soldier of son Paul, who fights at the eastern front, delivers his greetings and an embroidered Russian blouse for Emmi, Paul′s wife. Daughter Agnes, whose husband is also fighting in the war, receives a fur vest from the junior partner who is stalking her. Obviously, the vest is also loot from the eastern front. When the family receives news that Emmi′s husband has been killed in action, the war finally enters the house at the river. Emmi commits suicide while Agnes′s husband returns as a cripple from the war front. At home, he has to learn what a price his wife had to pay for the "Russian fur".
A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories.
Oskar Roehler's drama Der Alte Affe Angst (Angst) is about the dissolution of a couple. Robert (Andre Hennicke) and Marie (Marie Baumer) have little in common other than their sex life. Since Robert is going through a bout with impotency, they are having a very rocky time. Robert learns that his father, whom he is estranged from, has died. This disturbs Robert so much that he visits a prostitute, and is able to engage in sex with her. Marie discovers the infidelity, and the prostitute has a surprise of her own. Angst was screened at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival.
Tom, a 17-year-old window design apprentice, dreams about true love. One day, a new girl from East Berlin moves to town. Tom has a crush on her and will do anything to impress her. When he finds out that she plans to become an actress, he even discovers the aspiration to perform himself. For a while, Tom is on cloud 9.
The fun-loving, 26-year-old architect Franziska Linkerhand (Simone Frost) works for a famous professor. Yet, she feels restrained by her dependence on him and longs to take risks. When her marriage falls apart, she moves to a small town for a fresh start. Franziska approaches her new life with vigor and idealism. Many of her colleagues have given in to the dictates of economic restrictions and prefabricated apartment blocks; but Franziska hangs onto her ideals and, as in her private life, is not willing to compromise…
1934, Germany. Jan is a 13 year old boy, who is raised without a mother. His father, a communist, is accused of a political murder, and predicted to be shot by the police when he was on the run. Jan lives with his aunt and finds a friend, Max, who wants to help him to find out what really with his father happened. During a conspirative gathering Max is shot by SA (Nazi paramilitary) and Jan succeed to escape in a barge. Erika, the daughter of the captain of the barge, and a boatman hide him. They try to help Jan to escape from police and find his father, who really survived.
No description available.
A story about massive robbery from the safe of German railways set in 1946.
Each is dependent on the other. He breaks into the passport office to get a passport. He is surprised and ends up back in prison, where he is trained in military drill. After his release, he once again lodges with relatives, his sister and brother-in-law. Wearing a second-hand captain's uniform, he first takes over a guard unit and uses it to occupy Köpenick town hall, where all the employees of the town council submit to the supposed captain. The mayor is promoted to Berlin and Voigt presents himself to the authorities a few days later. At first, everyone present laughs at the prank, but then Voigt is made aware of the legal consequences. He is sent back to prison, but shortly afterwards he is pardoned by the Emperor.
A funny adventures of a two young boys who are trying to rebuild the ship called "Emma" for their friend - the old captain.
2010 documentary film on the Armenian Genocide by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It is based on eyewitness reports by European and American personnel stationed in the Near East at the time, Armenian survivors and other contemporary witnesses which are recited by modern German actors.
A young soldier enters Germany with Soviet troops at the end of WWII, feeling like a stranger in his homeland. As he meets Germans, he grapples with his ambivalence, realizing he is both a victor and one of the vanquished. His inquisitive nature leads him to confront the atrocities and lies he encounters along the way.
While everything is in ruins in Berlin in the spring of 1945, the British bombers are flying overhead and the Red Army is not far away, 15-year-old Kalle is not particularly interested in doom or final victory - because he has kissed Inge Kaliska and he knows that he loves her. At this moment in world history, nothing carries as much weight as this first love.
Jessi finds the petrified talking heart of a pirate who died centuries ago. The pirate's dream image increasingly becomes a substitute for her father. When her father turns up one day, she has to decide between her childish hopes and her burgeoning adulthood...
Malchow, German Democratic Republic, 1980. 20-year-old Anne is hiding Juri, a deserter of the Red Army. The two fall in love with each other. But their love is threatened: there is an arrest warrant and possibly a death sentence waiting for Juri. The two leave the country and flee to the West, leaving Anne’s six-month-old daughter Inga behind. Inga grows up with her grandparents and thinks that her mother died during a swimming accident. 25 years later she meets the literature professor Robert, who sends her on the trail of her past. He met Inga’s mother Anne during one of his seminars. At first Inga is resistant, but then she asks for Robert’s help. Together they take off on a journey through Germany, in search of Inga’s mother Anne...
A high-rise building in the center of Berlin in the GDR on July 11, 1982. The final match of the soccer World Cup is being broadcast on television. Five episodes revolve around this event: Soccer fanatic Kneutzsch is torn between the exciting match and the rather irritated woman by the unexpected visit of a lady to whom he has written a marriage announcement ... Dr. Kobermann - on painkillers - has mistaken the bathroom door for the corridor door and locked herself out. Her husband is sitting in front of the TV with headphones on and doesn't hear her ringing, so she seeks refuge in her nightgown with a neighbor, a flautist. After his ex-love Carmen leaves him and wants to return home, the exiled Andrés follows the game - in the knowledge that his father, thousands of kilometers away, is also watching...
Jost roams through the streets of Berlin. He opposes the world enraged, aggressively and furiously in a self-destructive way. He continuously provokes situations proving to himself that everybody hates him. He is convinced he does not need anybody and does not let anyone get close to him. Anna is walled in by her fear and unable to leave her apartment. She manages to keep this situation from all the others in a system of lies. Her reserves draw to a close. She heads for a catastrophe. One day, Jost shows up at her door.
At the beginning, everything looks like a normal job. But in the apartment of a cruelly murdered woman, Judith Kepler, a crime scene cleaner by trade, encounters her own past. The dead woman had done research and wanted to contact Judith. And she knew her closely guarded secret: Judith had been brought as a child under mysterious circumstances in a DDR children's home. Origin: unknown. Now, 25 years later, Judith has the evidence in her hands that she was swapped as a child. A stranger lived her life. Did this stranger also die of her - Judith's - death?
The tale of young Gritta who lives with her father, an unsuccessful inventor. When her new stepmother tries to put her away in a convent she discovers some dark secrets there.
Agnes, a teacher from the Hessian provinces, has come to Berlin to identify a dead girl who might be Lydia, her runaway daughter. It turns out not to be Lydia, but Agnes stays in the city anyway. Still frantically looking, she comes a young stray called Ines who no longer leaves her side...
Germany 1982: The country is divided into two parts. Nele, coming from West-Germany, travels to East-Germany where she meets Captain, singer of a band. They fall in love with each other, but the regime "takes care" of their relationship, meaning: They can not see each other again. Germany 1990: The country is reunited. Nele starts searching their lost love...
Berlin, end of the 1920s. Young factory workers Hete and Paul are expecting a child. When first Paul and then Hete become unemployed, the two look for ways to terminate the pregnancy. Hete goes to a doctor, but he refuses to give her the necessary document for the abortion. As a result, Hete and Paul want to carry out the abortion themselves, using a stolen instrument. Fearing for Hete, Paul aborts the attempt. So Hete turns to an illegal abortionist, who sends the feverish girl away with a bottle of cyanide, which is supposed to help in small doses. Hete goes to her mother, who takes care of her and also gives her the cyanide drops. But Hete exceeds the dose.
"Maria am Wasser" tells a story of the search in symbolic allusions and beautiful, fairytale pictures. The search for love, past, reconciliation and forgiveness. Summer 1983 in Saxony. A tank drives with four children of the orphanage "Frohe Zukunft" through the Elbe. The excursion seems to end fatally for all children, as the tank sinks. 22 years later, organ builder Marcus Lenk returns to his home village of Neusorge and claims to be one of the children. Marcus is perplexed: no one recognizes him. Not even his father Hannes, who lives with a few sheep, nor his mother Mary, who runs the orphanage with a strict hand, believe in his identity.
A Czech woman is kidnapped in Berlin and forced into prostitution. The man behind the kidnapping is a respected businessman. He is on the wanted list, but so far nothing has been proven against him. This changes when a young female detective becomes involved in the investigation.
Winter 1968. Historian Dr. Dallow is released from prison. He is still trying to cope with and understand why he was put behind bars for 21 months for defamation of the state. His supposed "crime:" for five minutes he accompanied a cabaret chanson on the piano. The film shows what "ordinary socialism" was like, letting the audience feel the threat under which the people in the GDR had to live over many years.
A day in the life of Berlin cab driver Klaus Grill.
Boxer is the king of the prison. Nothing happens without him in "his" prison, and if he has to, he will even knock out a much younger inmate - at over 80 years of age, mind you. However, his advanced age is increasingly taking its toll, which has not gone unnoticed by the prison doctor. Boxer is to be transferred to a prison especially for senior citizens - the idea alone makes the sprightly prison veteran shudder. But then his buddy Henne tells him that he has been looking for Boxer's great love Kathrin, and what's more: he has learned that Kathrin has a daughter - and she looks remarkably like Boxer...
Episodes from the life of German poet and communist Erich Weiner: his stay in Paris, participation in the Spanish Civil War, years of exile in Russia. Moscow, May 1941. Children play in the sun, young people fall in love, make plans for their future. German emigrants, including 50-year-old Erich, are concerned about events in their homeland and sense impending disaster...
Hannelore (65) has been caring for her husband Klaus (69), who has dementia, for four years. She is now at the end of her tether. When her neighbour Günther (65) unexpectedly goes away on a trip, Hannelore simply follows him—leaving her husband alone at home. What Hannelore doesn't know is that Günther has just lost his partner to cancer and wants to take his own life in a vacation home on the coast.
End of the 1970s in East Germany: Fred and Jonas are close friends. The 10-year-olds live near at the German-German frontier. After the mother from Jonas has made an exit application, the boys have to recognize that they are soon separated from each other. But they want to dig a tunnel to Australia to meet there themselves again. When Jonas should leave the country with his mother this night changes everything.
Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Platow worked for the railways his entire working life. He took up service at the small station of Luege 34 years ago. Now, the line is to be electrified and Platow, who cannot cope with the new technology, has to work on a secondary local line. Georg, his son, a railway worker as well, is to attend a training course, but Georg refuses to go. Then his father comes to a surprising and highly unusual decision. He pretends to be Georg Platow, making himself twenty years younger than he really is and registers for the course.
Berlin’s notorious Neukoelln district. The near future. A time in which the health system has collapsed. A man works in the shadows and without license as a doctor. He has no practice, no appointments system. He treats people in the courtyards and streets – everywhere he’s needed, stealing medicine from pharmacies. Nobody knows his name or that by day he’s the caretaker of a shabby tenement building. He pushes boundaries and suffers defeats that cost him the last of his strength. Forced to adopt the role of a shadow, an outlaw, he is confronted with the question as to whether he really is a doctor.
The time is the French Revolution; the place is the village of Travers, ensconsed in neutral Switzerland. Prussian aesthete Herman Beyer is on the verge of divorcing wife Corinna Harfouch. Radical writer Uwe Kokisch, Corinna's lover, hopes to find a way of smoothing out animosities. What follows, however, is a nonstop drinking binge. The film subliminally addresses the then-prevalent issue of a divided Germany. Whether or not it succeeds is unimportant; Treffen in Travers (Reunion in Travers) has proven to be a crowd pleaser wherever it has been shown.
1945. Peace still bears the traces of war everywhere. There meet the animated girl Xenia and the former boxer Henry. Being together gives them a sense of opportunity. She wants to break away from the semi-world milieu, he try a comeback in the boxing ring.
Little Felix Grosser is given a chest full of tin toys by old Mrs. Goldberg. The woman had once saved the toys for her future grandchildren, but her children were too busy working to start a family. Now Felix receives the old toy and Mrs. Goldberg warns him not to let it fall into other people's hands. Felix takes a white, dancing "magic horse" from the chest into his nursery, along with various other items. His parents, who are busy remodeling the bathroom despite a lack of materials, only find out after a while that the pony is a gift from Mrs. Goldberg, who no longer lives in the house. They have no idea about the chest full of toys in the attic.
Biggy is 18 years old and getting trained as a salesperson. She lives in a small town. In a greenhouse she meets Wolle, a 20-year-old locksmith. The two get closer and fall in love but their wild life comes to an end when Biggi tells Wolle that she is pregnant. Since Wolle dreams about freedom and adventures, he flees from the responsibility, starts to work in another town and gets involved with another girl. Thereupon, Biggi gets an abortion and starts to study at the university. She also becomes acquainted with another man, but soon breaks up with him. Since Biggi and Wolle are unhappy without each other, they get back together and start anew.
Robert Beck failed as a musician and works frustrated as a teacher - until he learns about his gifted student Rauli. A musical genius: He sings and plays guitar like a young god. Beck is motivated to help Rauli to become a successful and published musician to fulfill his own long-held dreams of a music career.
A couple have disappeared without a trace on their way home after a medieval festival. This calls not only the officers from Brandenburg onto the scene, but also the currently sidelined investigator Lucy and her former colleague Hannah. During their investigations, they come across the widowed Harald Kurtz and his father-in-law Meckenstock, who live on an outlying farm. Meanwhile, Hannah suffers from hallucinations and finds out more about the family.
The film is set in post-war Germany. It tells the story of widow Rosemarie Hermann, who flees Silesia with her sister Bettina, her father, and their two children Maria and Johannes ("Jojo"). In the general chaos, she loses her daughter. In her attempt to find her, she finally receives support from Harald Bergmann, who works for the tracing service of the German Red Cross and also finds her a job there. Maria initially lives in a children's home near Lübeck and is then placed with a foster family.
10-year-old Kathy Montag moves to a big city in Brandenburg. Before that, she lived in the Harz Mountains together with her father Peter. Her mother has died a few years ago. The girl finds her new home very exciting, and since Kathy takes an interest in everything she encounters, she keeps finding herself in peculiar situations such as a brigade party or the shooting of a historical epic movie. Her classmates consider her an oddball and even her father is unhappy about his daughter′s development.
This biographical film is set in 1937, with Fallada suffering the effects of living under a microscope. The film details his decline, as he is intermittently imprisoned and threatened in order to motivate him to write for the Fatherland. Even the attention of his kind, patient wife and loving children begin to feel oppressive to him. This is one of the few films to take a serious, in-depth look at the tribulations of a creative artist pulled in all different directions by the real world.
Alfons lives with his grandparents on a Silesian village farm at the end of WWII. He adores his grandmother, who runs everything after her husband dies. But everything changes after the appearance of a traveling showman in the xenophobic village.
Eight-year-old Matthias dreams that he will someday become a pilot and his divorced parents will get back together. He waits yearningly for his ninth birthday because his father has told him the story of Icarus, and promised to take him on a sightseeing flight. When Matthias' father doesn't come home, he is devastated. He runs throughout the city, talks to his friend about the relationships of adults, looks for his father at his desk, and gets himself into conflict with the police. As he sits alone on the roof of a house, he comes to the conclusion that Icarus didn't plummet to the earth because he didn't listen to his father, but rather because his father had forgotten him.
In the forests of the Ore Mountains, on the border with Bohemia, a gang of smugglers is up to mischief. Anyone who dares to oppose them is murdered in cold blood. The locals are paralyzed by fear of the ominous bush ghost that is said to be behind it all. Then a stranger turns up at the remote forester's lodge and begins investigating a murder that took place twenty years ago. Having become wealthy in the Alaskan gold fields, Arndt is now looking for the woman he once loved and whose perjury landed him in prison. The forester and the weaver Eduard Hauser help him with his investigations. But Hauser himself soon becomes the victim of a sinister intrigue. Fritz Seidelmann, an unscrupulous profiteer who is after Hauser's fiancée Angelika, lures him into a trap. Hauser is arrested as an alleged bush ghost. For the time being, Arndt can do nothing for him ...
Shortly before his retirement, Gustav Wanzka wants to return to his beloved profession as a teacher after years of working as a district school inspector. As soon as he arrives at the station, he meets the boy Norbert Kniep, his future pupil, who clearly surprises him with his questions. He wants to encourage the pupil, who is considered uncomfortable to the teachers but is very gifted in mathematics. With his highly personal views on educational goals, Wanzka stands in stark contrast to his teaching staff. Any innovations and even positive conflicts are nipped in the bud, and thus the pupils are ultimately educated to mediocrity.
West Germany, 1983. Seventeen-year-old Ursula wants it all and is thus too much, although all she's looking for is love. Enter Siegfried Grimm, the charismatic new teacher who finally recognizes Ursula's true potential. She falls for him, head over heels. A pity that Grimm sexually liberates the entire village - except Ursula. While the Grimm acolytes fight for the favor of their idol, Ursula resorts to more radical measures. Whatever it takes, she'll get back at Grimm.
The movie tells a true story in the life of well-known German actor Manfred Krug. Living in the German Democratic Republic he is forced to leave the country after protesting against the expatriation of singer/songwriter Wolf Biermann in 1976.
In his daydreams, 15-year old Otto is a real hero who masters dangerous situations by the dozen. But in reality, the rather imaginative ninth grader has trouble moving up to the next grade. Fortunately, his teacher Nickel notices that Otto does not lack intelligence, but the ability to use his imagination for the requirements of everyday school life. Together with school director Menschke, Nickel tries to change Otto’s attitude. Although this is easier said than done, Otto eventually realizes that he has to try to build his cloud-castles only after school has ended. And his teacher is going to support him in his attempts.
Dr. Roth, a respected veterinarian and head of a state-owned stud farm, had accepted papers from a man for safekeeping when he was 16 years old, toward the end of the war. Years later, they are picked up. However, this act proves to be his undoing. Before he can ask others for help, he is found dead in his car. Since espionage material is found in the immediate vicinity of the car, the police hand the case over to the State Security Service, which determines that Dr. Roth was murdered. Young Thomas, whose friend and guardian was Dr. Roth, investigates on his own to clear the man who had his complete trust. In doing so, he puts his own life in danger. Thanks to a tip from stud farm employee Renate, the security officers are able to expose the murderer, uncover his connection to the West German secret service, and clear Dr. Roth.
On a forest road in the Brandenburg March, village teacher Potsch accidentally encounters the distinguished Professor Menzel, who got stuck there in his car. In the conversation that ensues, Menzel and Pötsch quickly discover that they both are great admirers of the early 19th-century writer Max von Schwedenow who was born in the area.
Franz Xavier Stannebein, a young boy at the turn of the 20th century, wants to do nothing more than fly. He carries this dream through his years at an orphanage and into adulthood as a merchant in Spain. He eventually invests everything he has into building his own version of an airship. He later meets some industrialists in Germany who want to support his idea, and they ask him to build an airfield in Spain. When he sees the Nazis use the field during the Spanish Civil War, however, he feels betrayed and goes to Germany to protest. There he is thrown into an insane asylum in Leipzig. After WWII, his grandson and other survivors of the family searches for him, only to find the empty asylum... Based on the novel Das Luft-Schiff. Biografische Nachlasse zu den Fantasien meines Grossvaters (1974) by Fritz Rudolf Fries. The non-camera animation in the film was created by internationally known director Lutz Dammbeck.
Hermann Hoffstedt worked for 30 years as a controller at the GDR border. After the reunification Hermann was released. He refuses to accept the reality. Day after day he drives to the deserted border crossing point and does his work.
The fifty-four year old Dora, formerly a vegetable cleaner in the village and now cook in a holiday home, drinks her two glass of beer daily after work - one of the few amenities she allows. Her job as a senior cook takes her very seriously. With her endearing zeal, she writes in her free evenings on a manuscript about mistakes and possibilities of the large kitchen.
Roger has his own clear world. He loves his apartment. Roger works as a janitor in a house about to be demolished. Leftover GDR supporters, failed geniuses, artistic neo-Nazis live there.
Eva Jensen is a female carpenter form Hamburg who wants to make a new start on the Baltic Sea coast in eastern Germany. She tries to buy a workshop with a view of the sea offered for sale by Heide, who rents out beach chairs. Unfortunately, Heide’s ex-husband vetoes the sale. In trying to understand his reasons, Eva comes across a painful family secret from the days of the GDR. And in other respects too, the newcomer from the West faces prejudice in the village, although her skills are urgently needed. Fish-seller Christian is also interested in the workshop, which Eva just sees as fair competition. Then they discover a common passion, kite-surfing, and unexpectedly grow closer.
Jan Landers made it: Grown up in East Berlin, he quickly made his career after the turnaround: from the weatherman of a local station to the newsreader in Hamburg.
Inge Herold is in her mid-thirties. She is divorced and lives with her 15-year-old son. She works as a psychologist and social worker and is involved with a married man. Suddenly, Inge finds out she may have breast cancer, which would mean an operation the very next day. The 24 hours before the planned surgery puts her under enormous psychological pressure and she begins to reevaluate her life. With heightened awareness of matters of everyday life, she realizes that what she previously considered meaningful, was actually void of any real meaning.
After a successful coup in a luxury hotel in Lichtenstein, the jewel-thief Claire hardly dares her eyes: among the guests are her old "colleague" and former lover Vinzenz Kröger, who now leads a middle-class life. Actually, Claire does not want to have anything to do with the charming rascal. However, he is not ready to let Claire disappear again after he has finally found her again. From a spectacular jewel robbery to sophisticated arrogance, the duo experiences a lot of turbulence - and the emotional life of the two gets really up in the air ...
Three pensioners who live as subtenants on tiny pensions find themselves wanting to escape the sadness and mundanity of their everyday lives in old-age and poverty. They relish the thought that they could experience one last adrenalin-fuelled thrill during the twilight of their lives. With that motivation in mind, they set about commencing preparations for a big heist. Early Birds is a tragic comedy, a short film about poverty in old age, dignity and death.
For thirty years, Karl Achilles has been working at the chemical collective in Bitterfeld. But now his last day as a master at the plant has come. He is about to retire; even if Karl, who finds ending his working life difficult, wanted to stay on, it would not be possible. Karl’s colleagues have arranged a farewell dinner for the retiring master at an outdoor restaurant. But on his last day of work, before the farewell dinner, he meets all sorts of people: both colleagues and people, who do not work at the plant. A mosaic of the biography of a person who found fulfilment in his work and now has to look for the meaning of his life anew.
Feature adaptation of adaptation of Torsten Schulz's novel set in East Berlin in 1968.
