In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she...
Werner Schroeter directed this dark and surreal tale of a man determined to save a lost lover from a grim fate at the hands of a violent mob. The city of Santa Maria is falling into chaos as an armed military faction is poised to take power in a coup d'etat. Ossorio used to call Santa Maria home,...
A teacher at a German high-school in the nineteen thirties has issues with his students who seem to be getting less human and more convinced of Nazi ideals as time goes on.
The story of a Leipzig family from 1987 to the Monday demonstrations in 1989. After the death of her father, a high-ranking officer in the People's Police, the daughter joins the resistance movement around St. Nicholas Church. Phenomena such as obedience, followership, spying and resistance are...
This children's adventure movie is a charming tale of a group of youngsters in Prague who hear that Soviet sailors abandoned their failing ship in the Arctic Sea before it went down, but no one had been able to find the sailors yet. Inspired by the efforts to save the men, the youngsters strike out...
Master painter Hans Moll and his wife, the television announcer Ms. Wellinek and her husband, and the German-Russian Jew Yevgenia have many things to live on: food, drink, an apartment. What they do not have is work. They all discover the yearning for a chance to start all over again and bring...
Sven Marquardt might be the most famous bouncer worldwide. But beside standing in front of the legendary techno club Berghain in Berlin, he is also a well-known and skilled photographer. Long before the Berlin Wall came down, Marquardt portrayed the subcultural East-Berlin scene. His black and...
Ramona lives her lonely life in Berlin working in a lipstick factory. One day she accidentally runs into Andrzei, a Polish mechanic illegally selling cigarettes in Germany during the weekend. One thing leads to another, and soon she finds herself pregnant. Then her life starts falling apart, when...
In a loose set of cabaret pieces, Steffen Mensching and Hans-Eckardt Wenzel - highly acclaimed East German poets, songwriters and clowns - satirize East German life in its final days and the arrival of new times after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The clowns are allowed to leave prison to sing for...
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...
Chernivtsi, an out-of-the-way city in the middle of Europe. It was once part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy as the capital of the crown province of Bukowina. People of many different nationalities, languages, and cultures lived here together: Ukrainians, Romanians, Germans, Poles, Huzulians....
In early summer 1989, Helke Misselwitz portrays young musicians in a band who produce their music on other people’s waste items. The four boys call themselves "Bulk Rubbish" and they drum out their resentment, having grown up on the new housing estates of East Berlin. A straight-up picture of...
Dammbeck, himself an alumnus of the Leipzig Academy for Graphic and Book Design, presents the origins of the new German realism developed by the so-called Leipzig School, which took place in the context of socialist-realist dogma in the GDR before the Wall was built in 1961. After the Wall came...
Portrait of a private coal company in East Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district in 1988/89. The feisty woman boss runs the business with humour and understanding. Her seven male employees respect her. To the outside world, they are all tough guys, but as they describe their jobs and personal...
After Sam, a penniless Afro-German singer, discovers he's HIV positive, he gets utterly drunk, spends a few miserable days, but promptly falls (back) in love. Amidst a crumbling former East Berlin (its bulidings, cars, people & culture), Sam develops a "family" for the new millenium, for the new...
After a hot and steamy company party, Sibylle and Harald, both in their late thirties, spend the night together. He is a widower with two sons, with the younger son just entering school. She is single and relatively satisfied in her current relationship with a married colleague. When they meet...
Project manager Kevin returns to his childhood on the island of Sylt on a vacation with his daughter, motivated by closing a big deal there, since his company plans to build luxury apartments on a piece of land.
For five years Rogelio, a Chilean exile, has been in the GDR, where he works as a lighting technician at a theater. Though his colleagues try to make him feel welcome, he feels lonely and isolated.
The film tells the story of the East Prussian landscape and its inhabitants. At one time Germans, Poles, Lithuanians and Jews lived here alongside and with one another. After World War II and the expulsion of Germans by Stalin, the Prussian province turned into a Russian enclave. Volker Koepp’s...
