Based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm: Jakob is a poor farmer′s boy. Because of his timidity that even makes him run away from mice, he is often ridiculed by other people. Even the king is ill-disposed towards him. One day he sends Jakob to the devil to rob him of three golden hairs. This...
The successful entertainment artist Ralf Keul must develop his land on the Baltic Sea or else ultimately give it up. Inexperienced yet courageous, he hurls himself into the undertaking, which spares him no unpleasantness. He battles over the transportation and procurement of materials, constantly...
Driven by need and a thirst for knowledge, Krabat wanders through the impoverished country and falls under the control of the "black miller". Krabat defends himself against him, but his opponent still has the stronger means of power.
This elaborate two-part television film features a section from the life of communist worker leader Ernst Thälmann. It begins with the bloody riots on May 1, 1929 in Berlin, in which police officers shot at demonstrating workers, and ends with February 7, 1933, when Thälmann appeared as a speaker...
Who doesn't know the dream of an unexpected million-dollar inheritance? For microbiologist Dr. Wolf, it seems to come true when an American lawyer visits him to tell him about the death of his distant uncle in the USA. Wolf is to receive an inheritance worth millions, but on one condition: He must...
Frank, a tenth grade student, falls in love with his classmate Regine. His father is a well-connected plant manager in the GDR; Regine's mother is a single parent with four children. Regine wants to become a kindergarten teacher, but her grades are poor and she is not allowed to apply for technical...
Using the example of three generations of a Hamburg working class family, the rise of the working class from the founding of the Wilhelmin Empire to the First World War, over the time of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism to the destruction of the Third Reich.
In May 1945, returning soldier Michael Duda finds his hometown Weißenthal unoccupied. He meets escaped camp prisoner Arno Laube, who leads the town’s ad hoc move toward democracy and improbably appoints 19-year-old Michael as mayor. Tasked with refugees, shortages, and rogue soldiers, Michael...
Oliver is in the 4th grade. He hasn't been paying attention in magic class and gets a big, fat five on a test. He has to have the work signed by his parents, but he is ashamed and doesn't want to cause his parents any grief. So he tries to get rid of the five with magic or at least turn it into a...
When Angelika moves to Leipzig, she is forced to rent a room at Mrs. Häublein’s for a start, since her parents will not follow until a few months later. Fellow tenant Thomas, a philosophy student, is not at all enthused about his new, pretty housemate. Because of Angelika he has to move into a...
The crew of a small Saßnitz fisherman has problems with the "making a cultural socialist life". In order not to lose the competition prize again in the future, they want to show the organizer a collective weekend with all the trimmings. And they really do not mind ...
Ironically, at the beginning of the summer holidays, Alwins strict father has grounded him to get him to improve his spelling. Alwin feels like a prisoner and decides to run away heading to his grandparents in the Harz mountains nearly 200 kilometers away. On the road Alwin meets many people and...
Martina and Jürgen are lovers in the GDR. She is studying economics in Leipzig, he is preparing for his master's examination as a violin maker in Altneukirchen in Vogtland. While Martina deals with problems of modern science and technology in her thesis, Jürgen is committed to the traditions of...
Winter of 1943. Cheerful, shy beginning of a tender love between the electric fitter Paul, who works on the estate on the power poles and the girl Anna. Both encounter each other during the war on a Mecklenburg estate. The three buxom and arrogant maids Elsa I, II and III, who also work in the...
A young woman does everything she can to catch the eye of her chosen one. In the end, she even goes into the water - wearing a diving suit. A cheerful underwater love story for GDR television, which also casually promotes the diving section of the pre-military Society for Sport and Technology in...
"Route Casanova" is how people call the train driver Roland Diesler, as a love awaits him at almost every station. His colleague even has to carry out a plan extra so that there are no collisions between his rendezvous. However, when Roland looks at Ulla, the daughter of the station manager Bünau,...
