A gangster comedy in which a hitman decides to quit his job to marry the beautiful woman who, thanks to his secret recipe, makes the best ketchup in town. Both cause considerable problems for the local "boss" and his protection money collectors.
While on a Mediterranean vacation, a seemingly happy boyfriend and girlfriend find their connection to one another tested as they bond with another couple.
The documentary sketches the essence and impact, history and present of the Berlin drama school "Ernst Busch". It takes the move of the school in 2018 as an opportunity to capture the contradictions between artistic and economic interests in post-reunification Berlin and in the present. After the end of the GDR, the school was threatened with extinction: the building was dilapidated, Berlin was broke, the search for a new location threatened to fail. The students themselves finally fought their way to the new location under the motto "Bitte nach Mitte!" ("Let’s move to the center").
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.
In 2016 the sun has turned the entire world into a scorched and barren wasteland. The humans who have survived are either resourceful or violent, and sometimes both. Marie, her little sister Leonie, and best friend Phillip, are in a car headed to the mountains - rumor has it there is water there. Along the way they meet Tom, a first-rate mechanic. But can they trust him? Fraught with deep distrust, the group is lured into an ambush where their real battle for survival begins.
A portrait of a modern family between collapse and new beginnings dealing with the big issues of our times, in a world that is reeling. Tim, Milena, their almost grown-up twins Frieda and Jon and their illegitimate son Dio - this is the Engels family, who seemingly have nothing left to hold them together when housekeeper Farrah enters their lives. The mysterious Syrian woman puts the Engels' emotional world to an unexpectedly wild test.
On the request of his mother Gitte, Marko, who has been living in Berlin for years, drives off to the countryside to visit his parents. His hopes of spending a quiet and relaxing time with his family fall short when Gitte surprises everyone by revealing that she has recovered after a long mental illness. Marko is the only one who respects her wish from now on to be treated as a full member of this family and, as a result, ends up tipping more than just the delicate balance of his parent’s seemingly harmonious relationship.
Marian, a middle aged nurse, devotes herself to her patients like a saint. Sometimes she even takes on the role of a redeemer, by helping the gravely ill to the soothing order of ultimate silence. When she gets linked to a neighbor in an act of common voyeurism, she becomes fascinated by him. Faced with the fragility of these newfound emotions, Marian surrenders to her human needs
Juliane's happiness seems perfect. She is head over heals in love and has just begun a new life with August. One morning, however, she wakes up to find that she has been unexplainable thrown back into her past - to the time before she met her new love. Is what seems at first glance a cruel setback in reality actually a second chance?
Hedda and Jørgen Tesman come back from their honeymoon to their brand new house in the western part of the city. It is apparent from the start that the couple is a mismatch, and it becomes clear that Hedda will soon be bored to tears by her petit-bourgeois existence. Until she hears a man she loved a few years back is in town, the writer Eilert Løvborg.
The relationship of the Dutch Roman and the German Hanna - who live together in Berlin - is deadlocked. Will their relationship survive Christmas?
After the death of genius Richard Wagner his wife Cosima fights for his legacy even against the will of her children Sigmund and Sieglinde.
Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an "Airborne Toxic Event" forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear - his own mortality.
Lars Eidinger is one of Germany’s most talented and versatile actors with his love of improvisation and physical acting style. This documentary seeks to dispel some of the mystique surrounding this exceptional actor’s unique art and also provide an exciting insight into the world of theatre and filmmaking.
After her mother decided that the eighteen-year-old mentally disabled Dora no longer has to take psychotherapeutic drugs, the young woman begins to blossom. The sedated teenager was never a problem for her surroundings – but new challenges arise when the pleasure-loving young woman discovers her sexuality. The family is threatened to fall apart.
Mother Lissy, father Gerd, son Tom and daughter Ellen: the members of the Lunies family are estranged. But confronted with death, they finally meet each other again.
In a mixture of feature film, music documentary and animated comics, historical facts are retold, analyzed and interpreted in modern settings. Ludwig van Beethoven, played by Lars Eidinger, becomes a contemporary of today's audience. Quick-tempered, irascible, curmudgeonly - that is the common image of Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer with the wild lion's mane. But there is also another Beethoven - young, seductive, spirited and, above all, combative.
Years after declaring her eternal virginity and opting to live life as a man in the mountains of Albania, Hana looks to return to living as a woman as she settles into a new existence in modern-day Milan.
Peter (39) has slipped into the role of the houseman over the years, because his wife Elisabeth (42) is traveling a lot for work and he takes care of the children Robby (15) and Laura (8). Peter learns that Elisabeth wants to go to Africa with her family. Due to the death of his mother Hedi, the soul situation Peters gets more and more out of balance. When he also learns that Elisabeth has already given her boss half a promise to go to Africa for two years, Peter feels ignored and ignored. It begins a blessing of blame, in which he gets into an emotional dead end.
What if the Surrealists were living today, in Berlin? Lexia, a Bosnian vagabond, comes to Berlin to become an artist. But she finds what she's never had. A family. Elixir is a story about love, art and fear.
A veteran actress comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself when she agrees to take part in a revival of the play that launched her career 20 years earlier.
Once again, the "border crossing" is celebrated, as every seven years in the Upper Hessian town of Bergen. It is really turbulent at this folk festival, when the municipal boundaries are confirmed from old tradition and everything is upside down. For this occasion leaves Thomas Weidmann his girlfriend and flees because of his botched university career from the city of Berlin back to his native village. At the party, he meets Kerstin Werner, whose life has just come out of joint - her marriage is broken and her husband Jürgen on the jump to another, younger woman.
Famous movie actor Jay Kelly embarks on a journey of self-discovery, confronting both his past and present, accompanied by his devoted manager, Ron.
On the 70th birthday of famous piano virtuoso Hannes Westhoff, a celebration is to take place at the patriarch's estate. For this occasion, his second wife Anne not only invited Westhoff's three sons Max, Fredrik and Gregor, but also their mother, Westhoff's ex-wife Renate. While Anne tries to maintain a friendly atmosphere, old conflicts resurface among the family. With tensions already high, things take a turn for the dramatic when son Max reveals shocking news.
The Austrian expressionist poet Georg Trakl was in love with his sister. And she loved him back. Their relationship became sexual and caused quite a stir in the local society. But when his sister asked him to flee with her to Australia where no one knew them and they could live as husband and wife, he refused for he could not live without the beauty of the German language. Torn between his love for words and his love for Grete, Georg turned to drugs and entered a downward spiral.
Jan-Josef Geissler (Lars Eidinger) seems to have surprisingly found God. The man, once convicted of the murder of a young woman, presents himself as reformed and suddenly plans to study theology and become a priest, for which he seeks the support of the Church. The clergyman Ralf Remberg (Devid Striesow) is then tasked with verifying the sincerity of Geissler's motives to determine whether the incarcerated man is genuinely serious about the matter. However, the more Remberg delves into the case, the more he begins to question his own faith.
It portrays the memories of Matilda Kshesinskaya and her love affair with the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. Matilda, a Polish-born ballerina from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, had a brief and intense romance with Nicholas between 1892 and 1894, before Nicholas married Alexandra Feodorovna and was crowned Tsar after his father's death. It also explores their relationship, facing societal pressures and interference from Nicholas's mother, Empress Maria Feodorovna, as well as Matilda's involvement with other members of the imperial family, the Romanovs, such as Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich and Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich.
The protagonist is a troubled and unpublished author who begins a complicated love affair with his new neighbour’s wife, Mia. They spend their days in romantic and poetic bliss, while Fin spends his nights tormented by everything he can hear that goes on and is said in Mia’s apartment through a curious section of shared wall. Mia moves and ends the affair but sends a copy of herself to continue the relationship with Fin, who can’t help but want the original Mia back.
Maureen, mid-20s, is a personal shopper for a media celebrity. The job pays for her stay in Paris, a city she refuses to leave until she makes contact with her twin brother who previously died there. Her life becomes more complicated when a mysterious person contacts her via text message.
Richard of Gloucester uses murder and manipulation to claim England's throne.
Berlin in the 3rd millenium. Rather by chance Kai Starel gets into the newly founded CC Institute "Carl Celler Culture", where hip creative minds buzz around in bleak spaces and think about company logos with animals. This brings up art, campaigns or something inbetween - and a liaison between the designer queen Rena Yazka (Sabine Timoteo) and Kai, who becomes her model.
The Blood Countess and her maid take us on a wild hunt for blood and secrets from times gone by. On their adventurous journey, they desperately search for the precious lifeblood while also uncovering the dark history of their ancestors. But suddenly a mysterious book appears that poses a threat to their vampire kingdom. As they are pursued by their vegetarian nephew, his psychotherapist, two vampirologists and a tenacious police inspector and his assistant, things spiral out of control.
An almost romantic comedy on the edge: Holocaust researcher Toto is having a major life crisis. Just when things at home and work could not get worse, he unwantedly gets a new assistent assigned to himself. Zazie is french, jewish, slightly germanophobe and supposed to help Toto to prepare a major congress. As the star of the congress suddenly wants to pull out, the problems are piling up and the two have to fix it.
A hijacker threatens to bring down a passenger plane to a crowded football stadium. Fighter pilot Lars Koch decides to shoot down the machine. The court of Berlin should decide whether Lars Koch is a hero or a murderer. The viewers become jurors, and their decision determines the outcome of the film.
A short film by Maren Ade, using re-cut material from 'Everyone Else'.
German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in West Germany, but is tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime.
A coroner finds a capsule in the head of a heavily mutilated corpse, containing a phone number and single word: the name of his daughter.
Following the phenomenal success of “The Threepenny Opera”, the film industry wants to win over the celebrated author. But Bertolt Brecht is not prepared to play by their rules. His concept of the “Threepenny Film” is radical, uncompromising, political, and incisive.
A French teacher makes a startling discovery while on a trip to Buchenwald.
In 2009, exground filmfest presented Jörg Buttgereit's picturized stage play “Captain Berlin vs. Hitler”. Now he had actors speak his radio play in a theater and then filmed it. A re-enactment of an Italian horror film of the 1980s. A stranger steals the hearts of corpses from a NY morgue. Detective Jack Romero and anthropologist Andrea Spinell are to solve the case of ritual mutilations. Their investigation leads them to a tribe of cannibals on an island in the Pacific. There Dr. Fulci pursues to turn the natives into aboulic zombies. Buttgereit's media transfer touches the video revolution and high time of splatter aesthetics as well as cannibal- and zombie themes.
A father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation.
After her mother's death, 15-year old Mia moves in with her aunt, the actress Cleo, who lives with her son Fritzi in a shared apartment in Berlin. Mia lingers for stability and attention but in between Cleo's rehearsals at the theatre and her relationally disturbed housemate Elisa, she finds herself in a world of adults who themselves seem to be unable to cope with life.
Sarah is a French astronaut training at the European Space Agency in Cologne. She is the only woman in the arduous program. She lives alone with Stella, her seven year old daughter. Sarah feels guilty that she cannot spend more time with her child. Her love is overpowering, unsettling. When Sarah is chosen to join the crew of a year-long space mission called Proxima, it creates chaos in the mother-daughter relationship.
A road movie about two very different brothers who have not seen each other for 20 years: city manager Christian and cabinetmaker Georg, who never left their hometown and took care of their father until his passing. After their fathers funeral, the brothers decide on a whim, and with some help from the alcohol, to fulfil their old dream: travel trough Germany together on their mopeds.
A wannabe actress follows her dreams and moves to Paris.
A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus, but when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer.
Three siblings have all reached a point of their life, at which they realize the need to quickly change some things before they step into the second half of their lifetime. In the midst of chaos, insufficiency and loss they are searching for the path that just might lead them to happiness.
Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.
Paris. The year is 1969. Andreas Baader on the run from the law in Germany hides out in the apartment of the political intellectual Régis Debray who at the same time is serving what is supposed to be a long prison term in Bolivia.
The massacre of the Levi family, of which only adopted twins Eva and Greta survive, pits priests Father Michel and Father Paul against the powers of evil, both convinced that the twins are diabolical. [This film was shot in 2016 and has yet to be released in any capacity.]
Becky, Tommi and Maik form a right-wing terror cell that lives in the underground and is dreaming of country-wide attention. Entangled in a complex relationship of love, hate and friendship, they follow a path of destruction that leads to a series of violent crime. Their alleged values such as honor, pride and loyalty decline due to their increasing disorientation.
Berlin playwright Lisa follows her husband Martin to Switzerland, where he manages a private school. However, when her twin brother Sven’s leukaemia begins to wreak havoc on his health, she decides she must return to her roots, which has significant consequences for her relationship.
The 78-year-old former architect Richard Gärtner (Matthias Habich) wants to put an end to his life. However, this should not be done abroad, but quite legally with the help of his family doctor. For Dr. Brandt (Anna Maria Mühe), out of personal conviction, it is out of the question to get her elderly but healthy patient a fatal preparation.
The ambitious scientist Franz Walter doesn't hesitate when he is promised a professorship at the university. He immediately accepts, pledges absolute loyalty to the system and agrees to work for the GDR's foreign intelligence service until he can take up his new position. Together with his colleague Dirk, he is sent on foreign assignments to West Germany. Franz soon has to use blackmail to get innocent people to talk. But his superiors go even further: GDR refugees and their relatives are targeted to be psychologically destroyed, forged letters, medical diagnoses, surveillance and wiretapping are on the agenda. However, this is more than Franz can bear: he feels powerless and increasingly isolates himself. When he then decides to steal secret documents for a later defection to the West, this results in an unfortunate chain reaction leading to his arrest and ultimately to his execution...
Overwhelmed when a figure from her past reemerges, Joan Verra retreats to the countryside with her son Nathan. There she experiences fragmented recollections of her past romantic encounters.
Set in a Medieval town, the film has a theatrical quality, as the behaviours and actions of the characters are exaggerated almost to the point of satire. Nevertheless, its relatively dark and heavy plot yields over-the-top expressions from the actors. There is little dialogue as the story opens: a mother is seen tending to her sick daughter, whom she is then told must be sacrificed to the forest. The viewers patiently but curiously watch the mother perform healing rituals with objects like egg shells, dried plants and twigs–also recurring in the installation–until the daughter mysteriously disappears.
Goltzius and the Pelican Company tells the story of Hendrik Goltzius, a late 16th century Dutch printer and engraver of erotic prints. A contemporary of Rembrandt and, indeed, more celebrated during his life, Goltzius seduces the Margrave of Alsace into paying for a printing press to make and publish illustrated books. In return, he promises him an extraordinary book of pictures of illustrating the Old Testament’s biblical stories. Erotic tales of Lot and his daughters, David and Bathsheba, Samson and Deliah and John the Baptist and Salome. To tempt the Margrave further, Goltzius and his printing company will offer to perform dramatisations of these erotic stories for his court.
Out of her love for the great thinker Leibniz, Queen Charlotte commissions a portrait of him. During the portrait sessions, the philosopher and the young painter engage in a passionate struggle for truth in image and likeness, and ultimately for love and death.
The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king Claudius, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet.
A plot of land, a house by the lake, its changing inhabitants. This one plot of land reflects 70 years of German history from Weimar, the Nazis, the war, the Soviet occupation and reconstruction to the fall of the GDR.
The story of Jean Moulin, a French civil servant and resistant who succeeded in unifying the main networks of the French Resistance in World War II, and who served as the first President of the National Council of the Resistance during the German occupation of France.
A chance encounter leads Aya to pick up a stranger at the airport. When he disappears, he leaves behind a gnawing hunger-one which perhaps only a complete stranger could fulfill.
Welcome to the grim world of Hugo Drowak. A misanthrope, boozer, and stinking old good-for-nothing. We invite you on a fanciful journey replete with romance, gloom, and poetry. A story about longing.
In My Home Is a Dark and Cloud-Hung Land, Julian Rosefeldt critically explores the German term Heimat, which refers to the sentiment of feeling at home, by featuring the forest as a complex motif. While individual figures-recognizable as references to the Romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich-interact on three screens in absurd ways with the nature surrounding them, a bizarre stage performance blending a forest setting and an opera hall unfolds on the fourth screen. In numerous quotes and references, literary narratives, fairy tales, and mythology are interwoven with German history, especially in reference to the Nazi period. The forest appears as a projection surface of German identity, ranging from closeness to nature to ideological appropriation.