Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
In May of 1983, a man turns 49 and, with his 17-year old son, journeys to the village in Baden that he left 40 years before. He wants to discover what happened then, the truth about an affair his mother had with a young Polish prisoner of war, how the authorities came to learn of it, the lovers' arrest, and the aftermath. While his son takes Polaroid photographs, he retraces the steps of his childhood and interviews those who should remember. The story is disclosed in flashbacks that focus on the lovers (Paulina and Stanislaus), on a jealous and conniving neighbor, and on Mayer, the local SS commander who wants to find a way out of inevitable consequences.
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.
Germany in the Thirties. A movie teller realizes that his profession is not longer needed. Silent movies are not produced any longer. Telling stories is the only thing the man was ever good in, so he does not know what to do now. As political circumstances are changing dramatically these days in Germany, he gets new hope that things will again be going better for him...
Damiel is now married to Marion, runs the pizzeria “Da Angelo” and the two have a child. The solitarily remaining angel Cassiel is more and more dissatisfied with his destiny as a mere observer of human life and finally decides to take the great leap. Taking the role of Karl Engel, he soon gets into a dubious milieu and finds himself as the assistant of the German-American Baker, who makes his money with shady arms deals and sends films east in exchange for weapons. Cassiel’s adventure turns into a “thriller” when he decides to put a stop to Baker’s game.
Werner, Andi and Eckat play dice to determine the next king of the trio. When Werner is crowned king, he decides for all of them to skip work and start for Korsika.
A woman's life is destroyed when she discovers that her husband has another family.
Brothers Franz and Erich Sass grew up poor. Together with his brother Franz, Erich specializes in cracking safes. Erich spends the money with his hands full. In the meantime, the police have also become aware of the brothers. Pursued by Detective Fabich, they get deeper and deeper into criminal circles. A man called Adolf demands that the Sass brothers work for him. He blackmails them and has their father beaten to death. The brothers then agree to work together. However, Adolf plans to have them killed after the coup. The two brothers manage to escape; they are also able to flee from the police, who catch them while they are still breaking into the bank.
Comic artist Brösel trades a magic pen that helps him come up with funny stories for the promise to fulfill one of Rumpelstiltskin's wishes. The resulting animated films show episodes of the life of Werner, a plumber apprentice and motorbike enthusiast and his friends. They are interspersed with the live-action portions.
Voted for in Sight & Sound's 2022 Greatest Films of All Time poll
A raw, honest look at the relationship between filmmakers, actors, and the characters they create together. Sometimes comical, sometimes infuriating, always fascinating.
The sudden death of his father will take Macius the enormous responsibility that comes with being king, despite having only nine years. After being introduced as the new king, he will have the power to change the world and the things he does not like. Although his main enemy, General, will try by all means to avoid Macius performing a good job as sovereign, the young king has some good friends to help him in everything he needs. Animated feature, as the German animated series of the same name, is based on the book "King Matt the First" by Janusz Korczak', a famous doctor and teacher of children.
A man is thrown out by his girlfriend and moves in with a friend who is part of a group of terrorists plotting an assault on a department store.
This Icelandic tale, loosely based on the real-life experiences of director Fridrik Fridriksson tells the saga of a boyhood spent in Iceland in the 1960s.
Two young women are hitchhiking when they get picked up by a man who proceeds to sexually assault them. He disappears after that. The suspicion that the „girls" - having a reputation of being "loose" when it comes to sex - killed him, begins to grow.
Polish socialist and Marxist Rosa Luxemburg works tirelessly in the service of revolution in early 20th century Poland and Germany. While Luxemburg campaigns for her beliefs, she is repeatedly imprisoned as she forms the Spartacist League offering a new vision for Germany.
Proud Annegret Simon is new to the retirement home. She doesn't particularly like the change of scenery. And rightly so, says Mr. Tiedgen, who would also rather live alone than be looked after. Exercise therapy and reading afternoons are the epitome of boredom for him. When the residents of the retirement home are invited on a sightseeing flight in a propeller plane, Tiedgen has an idea with which he hopes to impress the beautiful Annegret...
Franz Hofnagel has been a prisoner in a psychiatric institution for 22 years, where he was sent by his own lawyer. The fact that he has become fat during his time there and from the medication suits his plans... his lawyer will not recognize him when he uses his first vacation in so many years to take bloody revenge on the fraudulent lawyer for robbing him of his farm, his wife... ultimately his life. He thinks.
The gritty, kinetic, visionary cinema of Roland Klick is ripe for rediscovery. After shooting with international stars, such as Mario Adorf and Dennis Hopper, Klick celebrated international success and achieved cult status. Yet after making only six features, he disappeared from the scene in a rather mysterious way. The story of an uncompromising film maniac.
A story about massive robbery from the safe of German railways set in 1946.
The filmmaker René Perraudin made five comedic short films with Otto Sander in the leading role and knits them into a feature film.
Follows the writer Günter Kunert on his return to West Berlin after his emigration from the GDR.
A cinematic journey into the music of Udo Lindenberg.
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
In 1981, a film about the misadventures of a German U-boat crew in 1941 becomes a worldwide hit almost four decades after the end of the World War II. Millions of viewers worldwide make Das Boot the most internationally successful German film of all time. But due to disputes over the script, accidents on the set, and voices accusing the makers of glorifying the war, the project was many times on the verge of being cancelled.
A study of German 19th Century Romantic art through the writings and paintings of Carl David Friedrich and his fellow artist, Carl Gustav Carus.
The life story of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a German Jew, who as a physician established the field of sexology, and fought militantly against German anti-sodomy laws in the late 19th century. The script reveals main characters in Hirschfeld's life including impossible love interest Baron von Teschenberg, and Hirschfeld's aids- young Karl Giese and guardian angel, the transvestite Dorchen, as they establish the First Institute of Sexual Sciences in Berlin in 1920, and follows their struggles to keep it open, up to the rise of the Third Reich in the mid 1930s.
Psychological thriller that focuses on the intense conflict between a university professor and a blackmailer.
In New York City, detective Luigi Mackeroni investigates a string of mysterious penile mutilations at the Hotel Quickie. After Mackeroni attempts to have a tryst with a gigolo he meets in the lobby, a carniverous condom bites off his right testicle and flees, which sets the detective off on a quest to stop the predatory prophylactic once and for all.
In this biopic, Marlene Dietrich leaves Berlin for Hollywood, where she establishes herself as an international star through various film roles.
The story of a Leipzig family from 1987 to the Monday demonstrations in 1989. After the death of her father, a high-ranking officer in the People's Police, the daughter joins the resistance movement around St. Nicholas Church. Phenomena such as obedience, followership, spying and resistance are illustrated in this haunting film based on individual people. A film that provides food for thought for the discussion about the fall of the Berlin Wall and recapitulates contemporary history.
An impoverished young man from Sicily travels to Wolfsburg, West Germany to find work. He takes a job in the Volkswagen factory after he travels through Northern Italy by train.
One evening, the once successful architect Helmut is tired of the recession giving no jobs, he gets the idea of robbing a bank. He recruits members of his golf club that are not paying their fees.
East-Berlin, 1961, shortly after the erection of the Wall. Konrad, Sophie and three of their friends plan a daring escape to Western Germany. The attempt is successful, except for Konrad, who remains behind. From then on, and for the next 28 years, Konrad and Sophie will attempt to meet again, in spite of the Iron Curtain. Konrad, who has become a reputed Astrophysicist, tries to take advantage of scientific congresses outside Eastern Germany to arrange encounters with Sophie. But in a country where the political police, the Stasi, monitors the moves of all suspicious people (such as Konrad's sister Barbara and her husband Harald), preserving one's privacy, ideals and self-respect becomes an exhausting fight, even as the Eastern block begins its long process of disintegration.
Two young lads in Munich, Germany manage to score dates with drop-dead gorgeous underwear models. Now they must find a way to get past the formidable bouncers of Munich's poshest night club, 'Spy.'
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.
A German Marquise has to deal with a pregnancy she cannot explain and an infatuated Russian Count.
While everything is in ruins in Berlin in the spring of 1945, the British bombers are flying overhead and the Red Army is not far away, 15-year-old Kalle is not particularly interested in doom or final victory - because he has kissed Inge Kaliska and he knows that he loves her. At this moment in world history, nothing carries as much weight as this first love.
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."
Open your eyes: Otto Sander is one actor beside 4999 other main actors: 5,000 individuals searching for their real identity, 10,000 eyes that carefully observe so that they din't miss anything.
Dave knows what it is to suffer. Especially when he takes the rap for a gang of motorbike thieves and ends up in jail. All for the love of Corinna, his beautiful girlfriend. Refused parole and nearly insane with frustration he makes a violent escape to be with her and strike back.
A group of people from the wealthy middle class in engage in quasi intellectual quarrels and discussions trying to find some meaning in their comfortable and indolent life. Adaptation of the play by Maxim Gorky.
A man dressed city-like walks across a wood and fields when he suddenly finds a perfectly circle-shaped black hole in the ground. The man begins to investigate the phenomenon...
Linda Lano loves her job in an advertising agency and she also loves the men. But most men think of them as machos, as does charming big business Mike Badon. She expresses this bluntly and thus puts the success of their agency on the line. The widowed Mike is intrigued by the idiosyncratic Linda. When it sparks between the two, however, the attractive Susanne Badon appears. Since Linda misses the supposedly faithless Mike the pass. Linda only realizes that Susanne is Mike's younger sister when it's almost too late.
A film about a young man (Otto Sander) in a poor Bavarian village who plays the role of the village idiot.
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
Romy Haag portrays Clarissa Vornfeist who dreams of fame, while Otto Sander in his role as Wilfried plans to transform her into a plastic doll using a prepared broiler.
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.
Lake Lucerne in 1868: a passionate and forbidden affair flares up between the gifted composer Richard Wagner and the much younger Cosima von Bülow - the aristocrat is already married and the mother of four children. Contrary to all conventions, the two publicly confess their love - and break a social taboo in the process.
This is a documentary about the making of "Wings of Desire" (1987). The director, writer, actors, composer and other contributors speak at length and in detail about how the award-winning film was devised, cast, filmed, scored and edited.
A 14-year-old orphan named Krabat flees the horrors of the 30 Years War by becoming an apprentice to an ominous master of a mysterious mill. Krabat is not only taught the craft of milling, but is also instructed in the sinister world of the darker arts. When the life of his friend and protector is threatened, Krabat must struggle to free himself from an evil sorcerer's control in a gripping fight for freedom, friendship and love.
The security guard at a pawn shop in a small port town, the seasick scion of a family of sailors, falls in love with the mistress of one of his best customers, a man who is constantly in debt. Under pressure from the mafia, the customer persuades his girlfriend to meet with the security guard and distract him while he commits a robbery.
As the ship Donau makes its final journey from Vienna to the Black Sea, a young man sworn to fulfill a dying woman's wish lures a reluctant captain into a new adventure.
Between Munich and Seville, the destinies of sixteen characters intertwine and intersect, missing each other or colliding head-on. They are all, without knowing it, at a pivotal moment in their lives...
A series of 9 performance art pieces and surrealist shorts created and primarily performed by Rebecca Horn.
Together with her bisexual friend and manager Stefan, singer Miko is working on a great career that has so far failed to materialize.
No crisis is as disastrous, overwhelming and unjust as that of Alfi Seliger. The Jewish filmmaker, hypochondriac and family man is up to his neck in problems: his pubescent children Romy and Alain find him ridiculous, his wife Helena would be happy if she only found him ridiculous, his bank is going bankrupt and his new film project is finding it difficult to meet with approval. Friend becomes foe, hope becomes paranoia and when even his psychiatrist advises him to end his life, Alfi Seliger attempts a theatrical exit. But as befits a born "Nebbich", a lovable loser, even this fails - he survives and only appears to awaken in his old life...
Short by Baldenius.
Interdisciplinary studies put into practice is a plane on which HaF's interests and mine coincide. Ideas of fictional research projects in films emerge very early on, or of film as research device, allowing people from different disciplines to come together and discover something, to pursue a line of thought, or just be adventurous. These ideas correspond to a tendency we both have of accumulating knowledge from different sciences, for example so as to bring exact sciences like medicine together with subjects which aren't directly aimed at application, such as religious studies or anthropology.
The vastness of our planets oceans guards unimaginable secrets. One of its most precious is Kaluokahina, the enchanted reef whose magic protects it against humans finding it. Kaluokahinas colorful inhabitants have thus always lived in peace... until the volcano erupts, and the spell is broken.
Comedian Harmonists tells the story of a famous, German male sextet, five vocals and piano, the "Comedian Harmonists", from the day they meet first in 1927 to the day in 1934, when they become banned by the upcoming Nazis, because three of them are Jewish.
In 1936 Nazi Germany, a young, innocent apprentice, full of Olympic fever, leaves his rural village to see the ceremonies in Berlin. Upon arriving in the capitol, he meets a widow and a relationship blossoms. They spend an idyllic summer at her lakeside home, but the forces of totalitarianism cannot be held at bay and soon invade their lives.
Orhan, who is ten years old, comes to Vienna from a small Village in Anatolia. Armed with his grandfather's revolver, he intends to avenge his father, who was a "guest worker" and was killed in a car accident. On his quest for "vengeance", Orhan meets friends and enemies and finds himself in a totally strange world. Finally he realizes the absurdity of his plan and returns to his village.
A cautionary tale about what happens if you scam a kid.
A screen adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play about three sisters yearning for a better life.
First part of Hölderlin-trilogy with Udo Samel, Otto Sander and Jean-Marie Straub.
Secret agents from the East and the West scheme to obtain an ingenious invention.
Second part of Hölderlin-trilogy with Udo Samel and Otto Sander in cast.
A documentary about Germany's last emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II.
A German U-boat stalks the frigid waters of the North Atlantic as its young crew experience the sheer terror and claustrophobic life of a submariner in World War II.