„White mouse“ Fritz controls the traffic on Dresden’s Körner Square. Helene, who crosses the junction on her motor scooter every day, has taken a shine to Fritz a long while ago. Although Fritz yields right-of-way to her remarkably often, the two have not spoken to each other. In order to finally get to know him better, Helene deliberately performs a traffic violation. Her plan is working: She is ordered to take road safety education lessons from Fritz and they get closer. New problems arise in the shape of Mrs. Messmer who must pay a monetary fine. She feels discriminated against by Fritz and complains about him to his supervisor.
Klaus lives with his two brothers Kunz and Franz in a little village. Together, they ply their trade as cobblers in a small workshop. But the workload rests mainly on the shoulders of ill-treated Klaus. When Kunz and Franz go off into the forest to chop wood for fuel they run into an old woman who asks them for some wine and bread. Rudely and gruffly, they refuse her request and return home without any wood. Klaus then has to set out and he meets the old woman as well. He gladly offers her his frugal meal which is suddenly turned into pancakes and good wine. In addition, he receives a golden goose for his kindness. The bird possesses a an unusual characteristic: all those who are prying, nosy, envious and rapacious get stuck to it and become glued to one another.
Otto is turning 65 and a big celebration with relatives and friends is coming up. What does life bring? A comfortable retirement, looking after his beloved grandchildren, lamenting the aches and pains of old age. None of that. Otto falls in love with Klara and the two of them are looking for a place to live together. What is in itself a matter of course comes up against many barriers. A turbulent time begins for the two newly in love...
A farmer receives land from the king and discovers a buried golden mortar. He decides to give it to the king out of gratitude, but his clever daughter warns him that the king will surely want him to bring a corresponding pestle as well. When the king throws the farmer into jail for fraud, he bemoans the fact that he did not listen to his daughter.
When Prince Vain got his shirt fixed, he proclaims that he had slain two lizards in front of the tailor's house - "two in one strike". When the tailor swats seven flies at once, he sows himself a banner saying "seven in one strike", and together with his bird he starts a journey into the world to pronounce his deed.
The film tells the story of the smelter brigade of a steel mill whose members are connected by a strong comradeship. Among the workers are, for instance, young Rolf, whom everybody just calls "Lachtaube" and who always comes through for his co-workers, or the likable Hubert, who works as a simple smelter again after being dismissed as the head of the steel mill. Then, there is also the stubborn Manfred, who should have become a brigadier long ago because of his experience and his competence, but this privilege is refused to him because Manfred is not a party member. Ironically, it is Manfred who hears by accident about the plans of the mill to close down the old Martin furnaces – and to lay off the smelters. When the other men learn about the plans they enter the barricades for their jobs and force the plant′s management to face the workers′ demands and criticism.
Normal everyday life in an apartment building on Plantagenstraße in East Berlin is disrupted when a truck pulls up with the new tenants' furniture. And they include two small children - now, of all times, when old Matuschke's wife has just died and consideration should actually be shown for the widower. Even worse for Mrs. Tillack, however, is the fact that the entire male world seems to be after her 16-year-old daughter Katrin.
1831. A village schoolteacher Matthias Spitzbart dreams of the ideal school and writes a textbook on the perfect educational institution. When he becomes principal of a grammar school by chance, he puts his ideas into practice. His almost missionary-like zeal blossoms in wondrous ways, but his family idyll is deceptive. Entangled in his activities, Spitzbart fails to see his wife's affair with pro-rector Mehlmann, daughter Friederike flirts with the trainee teacher, and son Michael's misdeeds are enough to make a mockery of his efforts at exemplary behavior. Teachers, parents and the mayor are of the opinion that he has upset everything that worked before: he is dismissed...
After their successful May party, now the Lehmann family want to throw a New Year's Eve part with punch. Wilhelm's sons Franz and Paul are brigade leaders at a chemical factory. One of their brigades consists largely of fanatics of high culture, while the other consists of sports fanatics. But the rival brigades must work together in order to throw a successful New Year's Eve party for the factory, since the occasion requires both elements: sports and culture.
It is the 65th birthday of Wilhelm Lehmann, foreman of a chemical company. All members of the large family are expected. Preparations are also being made in the company: Wilhelm is to be awarded the »Labor banner« and, as every year, the sons are responsible for the may bowl. But instead of family members, telegrams with rejections flutter into the house.
The two computer specialists Frank and Kamminke are not the type of citizens the party likes. Thus they are sent to the landscape where they still find enough stuff to do: They repair the software of a western type factory which is currently not working.
Drama about an impoverished family, a widowed mother and her two sons, trying to get by.
Experiences and problems of an air squadron: Commander Milan has reached the age limit for pilots and must come to terms with the fact that he will have to give up flying from now on. Lieutenant Lenz loses control of the plane during a flight and is seriously injured during the parachute rescue, in the worst case scenario he remains paralyzed. He doesn't want to tie his girlfriend Anka to him, but she sticks by him. Young Kullas comes into the squadron to replace Lenz. His predecessor's accident makes him afraid and he tries to find out what courage means to him. Lieutenant Herzog loves the teacher Sigrid. She returns his love, but it is difficult for her to choose a "hero" once again. Two years earlier, her husband was killed defusing a bomb. But Herzog does not want to give up his job. The fifth, Captain Wendland, is a party secretary. He takes flying just as seriously as his concern for his comrades.
It's the holidays and a German freighter captain takes his whole family - his wife, ten-year-old Klaus and five-year-old Andrea - on a cruise to Czechoslovakia. The children have secretly smuggled Jackie the Fox Terrier aboard...
Accompanying a GDR fashion team, journalist Thomas takes a plane to an haute couture festival in an exclusive Mediterranean seaside resort. A French Padre, who could be mistaken for Thomas's twin brother, is a fellow passenger. Precisely for this reason, the journalist is plunged into the most extraordinary and very precarious situations.
Berlin’s last barrel‐organ player, Otto Steppke, is to receive the “Golden Cylinder” atop the shining “Berlin Moon” teleballoon above Alexanderplatz. Piloted old‐style by balloon, the gala flight, hosted by the operetta’s Frau Luna, promises Lincke waltzes and Kollos tunes. But Otto’s daughter, his ex Mrs. Pusebach, and intrepid reporter Telemann conspire (along with fickle love and capricious winds) to upend the hour‐long ascent in wild, music-filled chaos.
The young medical student Klaus Bach has married the love of his life, Irene, and lives with her and their eternally screaming offspring in a small one-room apartment in his parents' house. So things are tight and everyone's nerves are on edge. What's more, the parents' well-intentioned advice is seriously disrupting the young couple's marital bliss.
A group of young people draws straws to see who'll steal some cigarettes. With this theft, Sebastian starts a bizarre, symbolic odyssey through a sclerotic world, in search of himself and of truth and justice. When he tries withdrawing from one social paradigm, he finds himself caught in another.
A communist is released from prison in 1935 Hamburg. He tries to link up with the Party again, but is unsure as to who he can trust, and has difficulty adjusting to life in Nazi Germany.
After the second World War, Dresden has a lot of reconstructing to do. To get the cigarette factory he once worked for running again, Kalle has to travel to Wittenberg - the only place where carbide can be found. Once there, Kalle find himself in the unfortunate situation of having to hitchhike his way back to Dresden, transporting seven heavy barrels of carbide. However, his inventiveness and optimistic attitude help transform the grueling task into an adventurous, entertaining, and funny journey.
The time is the French Revolution; the place is the village of Travers, ensconsed in neutral Switzerland. Prussian aesthete Herman Beyer is on the verge of divorcing wife Corinna Harfouch. Radical writer Uwe Kokisch, Corinna's lover, hopes to find a way of smoothing out animosities. What follows, however, is a nonstop drinking binge. The film subliminally addresses the then-prevalent issue of a divided Germany. Whether or not it succeeds is unimportant; Treffen in Travers (Reunion in Travers) has proven to be a crowd pleaser wherever it has been shown.
The successful entertainment artist Ralf Keul must develop his land on the Baltic Sea or else ultimately give it up. Inexperienced yet courageous, he hurls himself into the undertaking, which spares him no unpleasantness. He battles over the transportation and procurement of materials, constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, while his craftsmen offer little additional assistance.
Comedy about the "Husarenstreich", the 1757 Berlin raid during the Seven Years' War.
The famous actor Ralf Horricht is a pain in his current director's butt while shooting a comedy about the army. So Horricht believes it a joke, when he receives an induction-order as reserve-officer... but the captain tries his best to make him realize this is no laughing matter.
This comedic musical tells the story of Gabi, a young hairdresser from the Baltic coast who desperately wants to be a jockey. One day, she packs her bags, drives to Hoppegarten, and is soundly rejected by the head coach. Gabi doesn't want to give up, and in order to at least have a roof over her head, she rushes into a marriage with the seemingly nice Freddie. However, this marriage soon proves to be her second rejection, as Freddie openly dislikes the fact that she wants to be a jockey.
A wild story set in eighteenth-century Prussia. Alexander can do everything that a real devil of a fellow must be able to do: ride, shoot, love and devise clever plots. As a result, he is able to climb the ladder from herder to chamber master, where he makes a fool of the feudal lords.
A murder has been committed in "Pension Boulanka", a famous guesthouse for artists and circus people. Captain Bruckner is heading the investigating team.
Little Tim Tammer, the son of a lighthouse keeper, lives right on the Baltic Sea beach, but his remote home often leaves him feeling lonely. When Young Pioneers pitch their tents nearby, he is overjoyed and quickly makes new friends.
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 people outside. As they perform their pieces, however, the country sinks into rebellion, the prison is attacked and looted, and the people chase the clowns away. Latest from the Da-Da-R was the first film made by an artistic production group that had fought for independence within the structures of the state-owned DEFA film studio for years. "Da-Da-R" is a wordplay on the irreverent Dada art movement of the 1920s and the German acronym for East Germany- the DDR.
Based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm: Jakob is a poor farmer′s boy. Because of his timidity that even makes him run away from mice, he is often ridiculed by other people. Even the king is ill-disposed towards him. One day he sends Jakob to the devil to rob him of three golden hairs. This is supposed to be Jakob′s certain death. But naïve Jakob gets going and on his way even promises the oppressed subjects of the king to ask the devil for a way out of their misery.
Karla Geisler is a woman with her heart in the right place and a very quick mouth - the tenant on the first floor is practically the good soul of the entire building community. Karla is also the aunt of a 32-year-old single man called Karl, who is not lacking in imagination. Every Wednesday, he invites himself over to Auntie's for coffee and cake so that he can do some geological studies in peace.
In Scotland in 1751, young David Balfour is shanghaied aboard a ship where he meets Jacobite rebel Alan Breck Stewart with whom he escapes to the Scottish Highlands, dodging the redcoats.
Dentist Dr. Franke's selfless willingness to help is much appreciated by neighbors and acquaintances in the GDR. There is only one exception: Biggi, the beautiful coach of the ice hockey team that Dr. Franke looks after. Biggi thinks Dr. Franke is a particularly clumsy little man. But there's also Nurse Agnes, who once again has to stick her nose into matters that don't really concern her, and thus helps things along...
Kasper Mai, an export merchant and comrade with a “clean” record, discovers he is the prince of Hohenlohe-Liebenstein. His royal grandmother designates him as the heir to her estate. A private trip to her reveals that she does not want a NATO airbase built on her land. The GDR and his grandmother thus find a common interest, and a clever lawyer from the East works against other family members looking to settle their debts with the estate money.
The fisherman's son Christian, called Spinner, has a lively imagination. When he is sailing with his pirate sailboat, he feels like the sailor Magellan on the oceans.
Film by Ralf Kirsten.
Young seminary student Franziskus has been ceremonially ordained. He wants to escape the harshness and injustice of the world and devote himself to the service of God in the quiet seclusion of a monastery. He is also hoping to forget the beautiful lady Aurelie, whose life he saved in a flooded brook and with whom he spent an amorous night. He knows that her father would never allow her to marry him. But the devil dressed in a monk's habit and under the name Viktorin intervenes in Franziskus's destiny and attempts to lead him astray. To do so he first uses the diabolical elixirs kept at the monastery as a rare relic. When the young monk gets expelled from the monastery, Viktorin prepares another trap with the help of Aurelie's stepmother Euphemie.
Christine is a young farm worker in a small village in post-war Germany. Her attempts to improve her situation through further education are hampered by frequent pregnancies arising from ill-fated relationships.
The tale of young Gritta who lives with her father, an unsuccessful inventor. When her new stepmother tries to put her away in a convent she discovers some dark secrets there.
In a king's kingdom there is a forest so dangerous that every man who goes into it is never heard from again. Iron Hans, who is responsible for the deaths, is found at the bottom of a lake and locked up in the king's palace
To gain lands from the prince of Saxony, a group of orphans seeks Mozart, in order to obtain the very rare score of one of his compositions.
Seven-year-old Kati is glad that despite her spastic disability she is allowed to attend a normal school. Her parents made that possible. In her first year there, she is supposed to prove that she can get along at the school and she does her utmost to keep up with her classmates. Her disability, however, is greeted with constant mockery and disrespect. Even her teachers have a hard time treating her equally. When Kati fails math, she has to attend a special school. Katie is devastated but her friends help her to cope with the new situation.
A small town shortly before the end of the GDR: 15-year-old Ulla lives with her mother in a dilapidated old building where not even the electricity works properly. Economy of scarcity and national bankruptcy are visible everywhere. Only higher party comrades live in the lap of luxury. When Ulla meets Winfried after a summer bathing trip, the two fall in love. Winfried is the son of an influential general director and owns things from West Germany that others only dream of: a computer, a games console, a walkman. On an excursion with her biology class, the high school student discovers that a dacha is being built in the middle of the nature reserve and the creek has been dammed. Winfried's father turns out to be the culprit, but the mayor is on his side. Ulla rebels against this environmental destruction connected to political corruption and organizes a protest. Her activism not only endangers her own future, but also her first great love.
Young lovers Hero and Claudio, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles Benedick and Beatrice to wed as well.
In order to escape her narrow and restrictive life, Senta, the daughter of a rich shipowner, seeks refuge in her fantasies and dreams. In this realm of imagination, a bold and restless sea captain appears to her—the Flying Dutchman—who is cursed to wander the seas forever. In her obsessive dreams, Senta frees this man through her love for him.
The young architect Hannelore becomes part of the all-male brigade Fröhlich whose members are supposed to build houses at the Strausberger Platz in Berlin. The brigade men drink a lot of beer and are less than thrilled about the new girl. Hanne is the only one who is absolutely delighted with Hannelore. When he starts a drunken fight on May Day, he is arrested and accused of armed robbery. Hannelore immediately convinces the other men in the brigade to help Hanne.
East German adaptation of Grimm‘s fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin". A boastful miller pretends that his daughter Marie can spin straw into gold, and so she is locked into a room full of straw and ordered to spin it into gold by the next morning. A little man appears and offers his help in exchange for Marie's necklace. The greedy treasurer makes Marie spin twice more until the only thing she has left to give the little man is the promise of her first-born child…
The black cooperative Cornwall boar achieves single-handedly, so to speak, what the LPG functionaries in Bolbitz fail to do. He takes away the individual farmers' fear of the LPG by secretly covering their sows at night. The black piglets frighten the farmers at first, because black litters mean bad luck and presuppose a sin. Collectivization is seen as a sin by the superstitious, especially Grandma Kahlow. But when even the priest's sow is not spared and they find out who the "culprit" is, the superstition dissolves into laughter and the fear of the LPG is banished.
A film about the historical uprising of the seamen in Kiel: During the Russian October Revolution of 1917, German and Russian soldiers start to solidarize with each other. By disarming the officers, machinist Henne Lonke and stoker Jens Kasten prevent the attack on a Russian freighter. When German admiralty gives out orders for operation "Nibelungen", which would lead the German fleet into a suicidal attack against England and quell the revolutionary spirit, seamen and soldiers from different political backgrounds unite in protest.
A young blacksmith, searching for happiness in a series of dreams, realizes that he must find a rejected princess and hold her hand. A fairytale after the Brothers Grimm.
"Route Casanova" is how people call the train driver Roland Diesler, as a love awaits him at almost every station. His colleague even has to carry out a plan extra so that there are no collisions between his rendezvous. However, when Roland looks at Ulla, the daughter of the station manager Bünau, this and father Diesler step in. They change the rosters of the two turtle doves so that they cannot see each other. But can the young couple be stopped by it?
A master thief returns home. There he is threatened with the gallows if he fails to solve the tasks set by the count. So he has to steal the count's personal horse, the bed sheet and the wedding ring as well as the priest and the sexton.
Three kids from a small village in Mecklenburg decide to sneak away to East-Berlin in order to gift Angela Davis a lucky pig.
Princess Josephine certainly has her moods and idiosyncrasies. Her father, King Eduard, misunderstands her one day and believes he has to look for a husband for his daughter. He decides on the court music teacher Adelung. But Josephine is against it; she wants a man as a husband who can play the grumbling iron. But then she falls in love with the king of the neighboring kingdom, Jonathan, who in turn only wants a wife who can bake peppernuts.