A man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is.
In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.
Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the...
David, a waiter, finds an unpublished manuscript in a dresser drawer. To impress a girl, he claims to be the author. When the novel becomes a best-seller, the real author introduces himself and begins to take over David's life.
Taking place at the Concentration camp Buchenwald at the end of March 1945, prisoner Hans Pippig discovers in a carrying case of an incoming prisoner a Jewish child. If reported the three-year-old is sure to die. On the other hand, a violation of the rules of the camp would threaten the long...
Somewhere in the GDR, in 1988: young soldier Henrik Heidler starts his service in the National People's Army, a whole new world. Together with the weighty troublemaker Krüger, Heidler and his fellow soldiers try to somehow do their time between old hands and bureaucrats. It's not always fun,...
On a winter morning, a mother goes to waken her son Heinrich; his bed is empty. She leaves her flat to find him. The neighbors' door, with a Star of David painted on it, is ajar, the furnishings in disarray, the family gone. She asks passersby, runs to the police then on to the rail yard....
A lifeguard at Lake Müggel has his hand bitten off and the marks indicate a shark attack. The lake is closed to the public by extending a local festival indefinitely while the city council thinks of what can be done to remove the shark. The public becomes restless having their lake closed for so...
Marc Deville is an acclaimed author of erotic literature. In his personal life, however, physical closeness with the opposite sex eludes him. Being a porn addict, his sexuality is narrowly defined by the framed images he can masturbate to. One day he meets Justine, a nurse with a fetish of her own:...
In 1938 Hans Zeisig, an apolitical comedian, impersonator and cabaret actor, flees with a Russian passport (instead of American, which he would have preferred) from Nazi-Berlin, and finds himself in the legendary Hotel Lux, the 'lost paradise' of the Comintern, in Moscow. Everyone believes that...
How Murat Kurnaz ended up in Guantanamo Bay is a mysterious story. 5 YEARS investigates the psychological aspect of this endless and unjustified "imprisonment" where Kurnaz had to endure never ending physical and psychological torture.
Maria Theiss is a good policewoman, but she is unpopular. For a long time she was the "holy virgin", but since she reported her corrupt partner, she has been called "Judas with tits". Now another conflict-laden job awaits her: she is to spy on her new colleague, police legend Edgar Feindt. His...
KAFKA'S THE BURROW tells the story of a man's "metamorphosis" (as Kafka would put it) in a rapidly changing and increasingly isolated world. A man (Axel Prahl), who has seemingly achieved everything, ensconces himself in his burrow, a fortress-like apartment complex. But no matter how hard he tries...
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...
Spring 1945: After successfully fleeing, Johanna is stranded with her two children and a teenager whom she has taken under her care in a village in northern Hesse.
Sonja Brunner works as a prison officer in a prison. She has been earning money for the family for years, providing a living for her stepdaughter Iris and her husband Jens. Jens is a freelance writer and hopes to finally land a publishing deal with his new novel. After an incident with prisoner...
Rebecca Thalberg escapes from a psychiatric ward to finally clear up the dark history of her husband Henry's family in the Ore Mountains. The locals turn out to be secretive and hostile. However, the local forester immediately falls in love with the beautiful stranger and tells her about the...
The Lübeck merchant Friedemann owes his crippled figure to a wet nurse "devoted to drink". He lives a secluded life with his three simple-minded sisters and his bedridden mother, loving only the theater and music. Only Gerda, the unhappy wife of the district commander of Rinnlingen, makes him...
Ferdinand's father, the president of the residence, can not tolerate a serious relationship between his son and a commoner, and moreover intends to marry him to Lady Milford, the prince's mistress, to increase his own influence at court.
