The movie's plot is based on the true story of a group of young computer hackers from Hannover, Germany. In the late 1980s the orphaned Karl Koch invests his heritage in a flat and a home computer. At first he dials up to bulletin boards to discuss conspiracy theories inspired by his favorite novel, R.A. Wilson's "Illuminatus", but soon he and his friend David start breaking into government and military computers. Pepe, one of Karl's rather criminal acquaintances senses that there is money in computer cracking - he travels to east Berlin and tries to contact the KGB.
Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.
An American historian (Mr Webster) comes to Berlin to visit an old man who claims to be the real Adolf Hitler and to be 103 years old. The Hitler who died in 1945, the old man says, was just one of his six doubles - one for each weekday - while Hitler himself retired into a bunker below the S-Bahn tracks and married a second time.
Viktor, a methodical hit man, probably on his last job, has no plan for his retirement. He does not kill Nina, a woman sleeping beside his latest mark; then he follows her and rescues her from an attempted suicide. Nina is attracted to him, but also wants to know who he is. Her pursuit of his identity crosses the investigation of Lang, a brilliant police investigator who tries to inhabit the minds of the victims and the killer. Viktor's employer also wants to kill Viktor and his contact, an aging arms dealer and family friend. Does Viktor have a future?
A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.
Laura sees a shooting star falling to earth and finds it in a park, down on the floor and with a broken point. The star is a living being, and Laura takes her home to reattach its point with a band-aid. The little star has special powers and can make people fly, or bring inanimate objects to life. But the more she stays on Earth, the weaker she becomes and her colors fade away and her powers start to fail. Laura must find a way to send the little star back into outer space.
In the closed world of a Catholic monastery shortly after World War II the post-war insecurity exacerbates the walls. A new world order has arrived. The monastic life begins to break down as some of the monks start to morally decline.
In the not-too-distant future Berlin is shocked by a series of spectacular suicides; a policeman's investigations lead him to a beautiful, enigmatic woman and the revelation of a sinister plot to manipulate the population through mass hypnosis.
A real time recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which leading SS and Nazi Party officals gathered to discuss the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Led by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, the Wannsee Conference was the starting point for the Jewish Holcaust which led to the mass murder of six million people.
At some point in the not-so-distant future, an unnamed European city has evolved into a bizarre dystopian metropolis, whose residents inhabit towering utopian high-rises and work, collectively, in a single compound.
Dr. Anna Stelzer is a separated woman who decides to change of scenery when his son Mark diseased heart. Both end up spending their vacation in Summerhill, a heavenly place in Malaysia. There they meet the owner of one of the largest tea plantations in the area, Paul Pflüger, and her daughter Asha, who immediately engage with close friends. However, despite the tranquility in the place, on the village seems to weigh a mysterious curse: all women who have married a foreigner died after giving birth to her first child.
Clara and her boyfriend break up their relationship in Paris. She stays a few days in the city, where he meets a man who offers her work. But, unexpectedly, love again knocking on her door.
Up-and-coming writer Junghans leads a rather dull life.
The filmmaker René Perraudin made five comedic short films with Otto Sander in the leading role and knits them into a feature film.
Möhnstedt is a paradise for parking offenders and speeders - village policeman Klaus Burck turns a blind eye to such offenses. Much to the astonishment of his new colleague Eva Mann, who has just graduated from police school and doesn't understand such leniency... When Jutta Krohn reports her daughter Nina missing one day, the village lethargy is suddenly over. A short time later, her body is fished out of the village lake. Nina, a nightclub dancer, attractive but unapproachable, died after having sex with three men. When the trail leads to the powerful bakery owner Jansen and his sons, the police suddenly have half the village against them...
A right-wing radical, who is not quite aware that he is one, goes around with his buddies beating people up and taking part in scene events. Things look bad at home. His mother is in the hospital because her husband beat her up. The drunken father has long since brought in a replacement, a homeless woman. The teenager lives in eternal stress with the alcoholic, but gains respect from his father through his right-wing radical friends. From now on, his home becomes the main meeting place of the clique. When one of the antisocial outings of the clique ends fatally for one of the victims, the father offers his son and his friends first an alibi, later a hiding place..
Konrad von Seidlitz is a young yuppie lawyer currently celebrating his engagement with Cornelia, daughter of minister of justice Volkerts. As a public relations gag, he hasn't paid his parking fines for two years and now insists on being sentenced to jail for two weeks as punishment. Using his knowledge as a lawyer he makes the best out of his visit in jail still working, still in a splendid mood and not adapting to any rule. Probably a good way to get the desired public attention, but also a good way to make enemies inside the jail-house. One day before Konrad is to be released his booth is searched and two hundred grams of cocaine are found. That's a serious problem even for a brilliant lawyer like Konrad and even if you're innocent
Erich Kasulke and Rudolf Portmann are comedian stars of the former GDR. When the Wall falls, so does their success. Portmann becomes a successful businessman, while Kasulke tries to continue working on the comedy circuit - without success. When his wife also cheats on him, he decides to start a new life in Berlin. There he quickly meets his old friend Portmann, who has built up a huge company. He offers him a job. But Erich puts the entire company in danger...
After Victor, 19 years old, is accused of raping a 17-year-old girl, his teachers -under the direction of principal Cornelia Cordes- have to decide whether he should be suspended or not. The discussion of these nine persons shows the contrasts in human character and reveals some bitter feelings...
After the dashing Bavarian Lena Mayerhofer catches her future husband having a fling with her bridesmaid, she flees to Berlin to take over her Aunt Käthe's long-established bakery. Her gay friend Donald is there to give her advice and support.
A man just wants to buy some cigarettes - but when he hurries out onto the street in his pyjamas to buy a pack from the vending machine, a chain of coincidences leads to the most adventurous night of his life. On his odyssey through Berlin at night, he witnesses marital tragedies and love affairs, bank robberies and wild demonstrations.
Berlin couple Eva and Peter are planning a trip to Bavaria with their children to visit Eva's parents. But there is trouble brewing behind the idyllic family façade. Father-in-law Anton and Peter can't smell each other, and the relationship between Eva and Anton is also fraught with accusations. With this baggage, the family goes on a day trip hiking in the Bavarian Forest. But before all the conflicts can be resolved, they fall into the hands of a brutal gang of smugglers - only Eva is able to escape. When the first shot is fired, the horror trip and a merciless hunt through the national park begins...
History of a Jewish family, the Oppermanns, in Berlin at the end of 1932, after Hitler has become the leader of Germany's strongest political party.
A young woman is torn between the love of her life and her second passion, fashion. In the first part, we get to know Isabelle, who grows up in the Trakenbergs' house, a highly respected fashion entrepreneur. She has known Jon, the love of her life, since childhood...
Felix from Hamburg comes into possession of a run-down gas station in the middle of the north German provinces through a dubious barter. But that's not all: right across the street, the young Weda also runs a petrol pump business and is of course not very enthusiastic about the annoying competition. Only when an oil company stretches out its greedy fingers for the two gas stations do the quarreling operators also get closer personally...
Patient No. 7, a man who has been wrongly committed to a psychiatric hospital for years, escapes and embarks on a chaotic journey through the outside world. Disguised as a painter, he causes uproar with his innocent yet eccentric behavior, disrupting the lives of strangers. Along the way, he befriends Marlene, a young woman fascinated by his unconventional charm, much to her jealous husband's frustration. As the line between sanity and madness blurs, the film humorously explores the absurdity of societal norms. Featuring a memorable cameo by Loriot, this quirky satire questions who’s truly "crazy."
The semi-documentary film contains fictional scenes as well as archive footage of the life and work of the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Franz König (1905–2004).
A television reporter searches for alien life forms and gets entangeled in a web of intrigue.
...Her son-in-law, Ippolit Matwejewitch Worobjaninow, is a former nobleman and a dandy who is currently wasting away as a small town magistrate in charge of civil marriages. He eagerly takes up the quest to find the treasure. Meanwhile, over the years, the twelve chairs have been dispersed all over the country. However, Worobjaninow is not the only one in pursuit of the treasure. Hot on its trail are Ostap Bender, a clever and colorful conman, as well as Father Fjodor, a priest to whom the wealthy aristocrat has also confessed her secret. Thus begins a wild chase that ranges from North to South, West to East, across water and land, from the country to the city.
Reinhold Schünzel is one of the most sought-after actors and directors of cinema of the Weimar Republic. When the National Socialists come to power in 1933, he just releases his legendary gender comedy “Viktor and Victoria“. Despite his Jewish faith, Schünzel is under the special protection of Hitler and can work unhindered due to a special permit. But Schünzel's days in Germany are also numbered. In his sparkling and pointed artist portrait, director Hans-Christoph Blumenberg tells about the rise and fall of Reinhold Schünzel. The grandiose Peter Fitz mimes a charming, witty and ambitious director. By letting some performers play several roles, Blumenberg cleverly illustrates the recurring conditions with which Reinhold Schünzel faces everywhere. Schünzel's irony, language joke and sophistication in particular congenially transfers Blumenberg to his film.
After 15 years of family hustle and bustle with her husband Max and their two children, Ally has had enough. She decides to finally realize herself and takes a job at a TV station where Max also works as a presenter of a show. Ally quickly becomes a talented and successful TV star, which doesn't exactly please Max. When the charming and attractive Rudi Kayser starts courting Ally, stress is the order of the day.
This TV movie focuses on an average East German citizen, who accidentally becomes a Cold War victim. Shortly before his wedding day, East German Stephan Busemann goes to West Germany to attend his brother Hubert's fiftieth birthday. At the same time, his son Martin and his daughter-in-law Bettina flee their communist home country in a balloon, what Stephan didn't know. As the East Germans believe he helped them to escape, he isn't allowed to return, so Martin writes a letter to the country's leader Erich Honecker. However, now the West Germans think that Stephan is a spy.
In Munich, the Armenian Areg dreams of studying cinema with his German girlfriend Lilly. Until her widowed mother fell seriously ill with diabetes. Areg and her little brother Garnik have to take care of her.
A historical analysis of how groups such as the Nazi’s may use language, symbols, and religious connotation in order to come to power. It raises questions that deserve in depth analysis and consideration. Questions include: Where do legends expand our thinking and where do they bury it? When does spiritual pursuit suddenly turn into fanaticism and violence? Last, have we as a society learned from our past, and if so have forgotten the lessons of the 20th Century? Are we now embarking on a new level only to learn the same old lessons about humanity again? In addressing these questions we are taken into the back drop of the history of Germany beginning in the late 1800’s through the late 20th Century at the eve of the 21st. “A society that does not take archetypes, myths, and symbols seriously will possibly be jumped by them from behind.”
An old man is kidnapped. His interrogation uncovers the biography of a mass murderer: The 80 years old man was a SS leader and responsible for the killing of thousands of people in the Soviet Union. He also "invented" an evil technique of eliminating political prisoners: the manipulated suicide. Thomas Harlan reconstructs the history of a bureaucratic murderer, he also develops a direct connection between the Nationalsocialism and the treatment of prisoners of the RAF terrorists in the Stuttgart isolation prison. Robert Kramer filmed the shooting of Harlan's Wundkanal: Notre Nazi documents a social experiment in which the children of Nazis and of victims meet a real culprit. The reality seems to be stronger that the fiction in Harlan's film. (Edition Filmmuseum)
By 1941, Adolf Hitler had taken personal command of the German military apparatus. His initial successes made this seem like a good idea at the time, but by 1944, after an unparalleled series of military defeats that Hitler refused even to acknowledge, a group of high-ranking military and political figures in Germany decided to assassinate him and take over the government. Unfortunately for them, their assassination attempt failed, and the knives were out to find all the people involved in the attempt. The most wanted person in the coup was Carl Goerdeler (Dieter Schaad), a respected figure in German public life for many decades. Twenty years earlier, a girl by the name of Helene Schwärzel (Katherina Thalbach) met Goerdeler. After the coup attempt, during the nationwide manhunt, Helene recognized him and notified the authorities. In addition to receiving a huge reward, she became the focus of a nationwide propaganda campaign, and was widely resented for her "success."
Shezad is a Pakistani refugee seeking his fortune in Hamburg. At night, he sells roses in pubs. During the day, he is looking for a job. He starts working as a dishwasher and soup cook in a Chinese restaurant. Xiao, the waiter, and Shezad dream of opening their own restaurant. Herder, the janitor of the asylum seekers' home and part-time escape helper, has to go abroad. Shezad takes over his job and finds the money for the restaurant in East Berlin by not entirely legal means. So Shezad and Xiao's dream comes true. However, the day of the opening ends differently than the two of them had imagined.
Vienna’s Prater is an amusement park and a desire machine. No mechanical invention, no novel idea or sensational innovation could escape incorporation into the Prater. The diverse story-telling in Ulrike Ottinger’s film “Prater” transforms this place of sensations into a modern cinema of attractions. The Prater’s history from the beginning to the present is told by its protagonists and those who have documented it, including contemporary cinematic images of the Prater, interviews with carnies, commentary by Austrians and visitors from abroad, film quotes, and photographic and written documentary materials. The meaning of the Prater, its status as a place of technological innovation, and its role as a cultural medium are reflected in texts by Elfriede Jelinek, Josef von Sternberg, Erich Kästner and Elias Canetti, as well as in music devoted to this amusement venue throughout the course of its history.
A film about the time of the blast furnaces – 1917–1933 – about the development of an industry, about perfect machinery which had to run itself to the point of its own destruction.
Berlin painter Banuscher has been rather moderately successful so far. He has only been able to keep his head above water thanks to the financial support of his girlfriend Francis. She then organizes his first exhibition, which is finally a success. Instead of gratitude, however, Francis is given the boot by Banuscher. She doesn't want to put up with this and swears revenge. And what could be better suited for this than the artworks of the vain Banuscher?
Three girls summon a demon. John Sinclair, a British investigator for supernatural phenomena, travels to Germany to meet Kerstin who is the only girl left. But the demon wants to sacrifice her in the old cathedral of Cologne.
The same situation is played out in different cities (New York, Berlin and Tokyo). A lover has to choose whether to commit to a partner who is returning home. In each case there are other people involved, an ex-partner and someone else in a "permanent" relationship, what do they choose to do?
Austrian flmed staged production of Euripedes' The Bacchae, portraying a conflict between the deity Dionysus, son of Zeus, and his cousin Pentheus, ruler of Thebes
Adapted from Eduard von Keyserling’s 1911 novel of the same title, Waves depicts both the lives and loves of an aristocratic German family during a summer holiday on the Baltic coast of what is now Lithuania, as well as the twilight of a social order and its mores in a world soon to be plunged into the cataclysm of world war.
Three young men kill two policemen after a chaotic bank raid; a problem which forces the trio to make a desperate escape across the border to Poland.
Couples and families in the days after September 11, 2001. All relationships become complictaed, but only one of the four nested stories surrounding a German who condemns the attack, and her husband, a Muslim who advocates it, offers approximate a discussion approach to the attack. The remaining episodes are poorly staged, construction-looking relationship tragedies.
Maja Vogt, a young management consultant, has just separated from her husband and is fully committed to her career. The assignment to save an ailing company from bankruptcy comes at just the right time. But the son of the company boss, of all people, is more than presumptuous and leaves no doubt about his disapproval of her. The two clash unchecked and you can literally see the sparks flying...
A great mosaic, a labyrinth of scenes, dialogue splinters, interviews, portraits of people surrounding Hamlet and wanting to be part of his story.
In a traffic accident, the funky young radio presenter Christine meets Bruno, a concrete mixer driver thirty years her senior. They are taken with his simple, direct manner and a relationship develops between them that throws Christine's previous life plans out of kilter. But when Bruno buys a little house by the lake where he wants to spend his life with Christine, she gets scared and moves away with her previous boyfriend, a lawyer. Disappointed, Bruno destroys the house by the lake. But when he has finished, Christine is standing there.
What are the Knickerbocker Band doing at midnight in the cemetery? Is a spirit really speaking form the sinister grave? Why does Melissa, daughter of the dead sorcerer, receive threats? Has it all to do with the mysterious legacy of the magician?
Sex, violence, and family secrets in the German countryside.
Prussian general's son Friedrich, Freiherr (German baron) von der Trenck, is an unruly student whose countless affairs make him enemies, but he wins every duel. Frederic II the Great recruits him for his personal bodyguard. During his cadet training under the cruel stickler Graf (count) von Jaschinsky Friedrich falls in love with the king's headstrong oldest sister Amalia. She, however, refuses to be married off the the Swedish king's heir. When Prussia makes war on Austria over Silesia, Trenck's loyalty is dubious on account of an Austrian family branch. Janischky eagerly convinces the king there is more.
Angelo and two of his buddies set out to rob a Swiss bank, and from the start things don't go well. The man driving the getaway car packed up and left before anyone could connect him with the crime, and Angelo's other partner got shot and killed. The best he can do is grab someone's cash-filled briefcase and take a car and its driver hostage. It turns out that the driver is the daughter of the bank director, so he figures that she's good for ransom money and begins negotiations for that. Meanwhile, the briefcase he took at the bank turns out to have belonged to a man who is willing to hire killers to get it back for him. The situation grows increasingly perilous for him, and he decides to flee the scene but not before he has won the heart of his lovely hostage.
Franz, editor-in-chief of a large publishing house and no stranger to sadness himself, learns shortly before his wife Simone's death that she has been cheating on him. Stunned by this infidelity, he doggedly sets out in search of his rival. At Simone's funeral, a pimp turns up with two bodyguards and lays a wreath with the dedication 'With love - your tiger'. Franz wants to get to know this rival better and even follows him to his stately home in Andalusia.
The satirical film is about the liquidation of a sewing machine combine by the Treuhandanstalt (THA) in the town of Altenburg in Thuringia. The company is ailing. The (corrupt) officer in charge at the THA wants to close the company and give the property to the West German entrepreneur Theo Krautinger for just one Deutschmark. Plant manager Blacher and his accountant Bienlein thwart this plan by presenting a Korean investor. This investor is in fact the Vietnamese temporary worker Hua ... The film was partly shot on the premises of the THA.
Claus Peymann's production of Schiller's play about oppression, rebellion and human rights is less a flaming political appeal than a subtle exploration of human behavior in a social conflict.
He wanted to revolutionize theater practice and at the same time social awareness: Today Brecht, who was born in Augsburg in 1898 and died in East Berlin in 1956, is one of the most important playwrights of the 20th century.
The life and struggles of the German writer Heinrich von Kleist.
Criminal police and antitrust officials arrive at the headquarters of a plastics raw materials factory. They pored over files, seized materials, and discovered price lists, which were, of course, encrypted. Their suspicions of illegal price-fixing with apparent competitors, driven purely by greed, grew stronger and were ultimately confirmed, but they were unable to prove them. Bernd Schiedel, the company's sales manager and caught in the conflict between loyalty to his employer and the company, had initiated the operation himself by providing information.