1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.
Gerold Plassek is an unsuccessful journalist on a free sheet. As an ex-girlfriend who suddenly has to go abroad and entrusted him with her son Manuel, his everyday life changes suddenly. The critical 14-year-old becomes a real challenge. Manuel has no idea that this "failure" is his father - "Geri" lacks any drive, the local pub is his living room and alcohol is his most reliable friend. But his misanthropic life is moving.
Gustl and Jana want to make a baby. While visiting Gustl's parents for Easter, Jana starts to ovulate. Surrounded by family Easter traditions, Gustl's sister waiting in front of the door, and Gustl's dad trying to bring on mom's dinner rolls, Jana and Gustl try to get closer to their target.
Deaths are increasing around Lake Ossiach this winter. An unknown body washes up on the shore of the miniature golf course, a diabetic dies of hypoglycemia on a park bench and another lady is found dead in her house...
Astrid, Elli and Isabella go camping together as they used to. However, not only because Elli has breast cancer, nothing is like it used to be. Only when Astrid steals the savings of a man who has died in an accident the three leave old habits to renew their friendship in Italy.
When Ella, the rich daughter of a corrupt banker, escapes from her arranged wedding and hides in the trunk of a Bentley,she meets Richie, a small town crook who has just stolen the Bentley. Together they stage her disappearance as a kidnappingin order to get as much money as possible from her parents.
Matthias is a master of pretense, from cultured boyfriend to perfect son or marital coach. He makes a career of being someone else. The real challenge begins when he has to be himself.
Alice and Josef are invited to spend New Year's Eve with their friends Peter and Ulli and their friends at a hut in the mountains. Alice and Josef invite the others to dinner so that everyone can get to know each other beforehand. As Peter and Ulli cancel at short notice, it turns into a dinner with strangers.
Insults, humiliation, violence, sexual assault - the world behind the camera and the scenes can be a nightmare for many theater and film professionals. Apparently there is a real climate of fear in some film and theater productions. Some directors, but also well-known actors, apparently abuse their power and treat those around them on set or on stage with contempt or even abuse. Individual cases have been known for years, including under #metoo. But are they really isolated cases? Or can directors and actors allow themselves anything because the system allows it? In their three-year research, the documentary filmmakers spoke to more than 200 film and theater professionals about the problems in their industry. How much responsibility do the alleged perpetrators bear for abuse of power and how much responsibility does the financiers, production companies, broadcasters and also the audience bear?
Charlie who comes to Spain with a group of artists wants to live a new life, so he runs away from the group to find another job. Later, under some circumstances, his talent for cooking gets him the job of a chef for the Spanish ambassador.
Captured with a mobile phone, we see a group of three friends gathering at a ski lodge. Daniel is about to propose to his girlfriend and his friend films the whole thing to remember the best day of their lives.
Driven by specters of his past, the chemist David Endresz works on developing a new drug called NatAct, which is supposed to heal a variety of psychological disorders. Gradually his doubts concerning the drug’s effectivness increase, but his boss, Viktor Kanzler, wants to redeem his father’s business by launching the product before approval. Journalists Miriam Seifert and Stella Wagner plan to expose the scandal about the drug and try to thwart Viktor Kanzler’s questionable intentions. Nevertheless a more and more torn David tests the drug on an unknown experimentee in front of investors and the press. Suddenly forces stronger than any individual’s intention take over and show how fate has connected everyone in the past.
Dan-Linh, Count Otto's future wife, is kidnapped. He immediately agrees to pay, but when he hands over the money, he finds Dan-Linh dead in the car. The whole family immediately becomes suspects for the two investigators. Envy, hatred and resentment were the feelings that the family had towards Dan-Linh, but which of the dear family was prepared to commit murder?
The death of a winemaker leaves Sifkovits unmoved – what with a fermentation gas accident, there's something going on, or in this case, something in the vine! Of course, the "Burgenland Columbo" isn't deterred by trivialities like his boss's order not to investigate under any circumstances.
Something terrible happens at a Croatian wedding in the municipality of Stinatz: the bride disappears without a trace after “stealing the bride“. None of those present can explain what could have happened to her.
Although director Olga Kosanović was born and raised in Austria, she is not allowed to be Austrian. Her first attempt at naturalization failed. One contemptuous social media comment summed it up: “If a cat gives birth in the Spanish Riding School, that doesn’t make the kittens Lipizzaners.”What notion of identity underlies a legal system that divides society into “us” and “them”? A film about belonging — and about a second attempt.
Places of longing loaded with expectations are usually only of a snowball throw away from the next disappointment. And on Austrian slopes the disappointments occur in the interpersonal realm. Bernhard Wenger stages his latest film as a painfully realistic, but also humorous, episodic mockumentary captured by weather cameras.
A young woman stands on the Rialto Bridge in Venice; in a cool box is her dead goldfish. Initially she had planned to let it be carried out to sea. But then an emotion that is even stronger causes her misgivings, and so she packs the fish up again. In the surreal setting of an empty city, she sets out in search of lost meaning.
The inner lives of six people are explored. Each has a connection to the Viennese subway station Schottentor.
Olga Kosanović reveals the unfair absurdity of Austria’s right to residence. The single father Vladimir wants to work to be able to stay in the country with his daughter. But if he doesn’t have a residency permit, he’s not allowed to work. From this paradox, the film filters a humanistic indictment of cynical domestic policies in the land of insurmountable peaks.