Berlin at the end of the 19th Century. Alexander Hoffmann is an ambitious PhD student of Ethnology. When a delegation of the Herero and Nama tribes travels to Berlin during a ‘Colonial Exhibition’, he takes a special interest in their young female translator Kezia Kambazembi as subject for his studies.
In the 14th century, a young merchant's daughter from southern Germany sets off on the adventurous Way of St. James to faraway Santiago de Compostela to fulfill her father's last wishes and bring his heart there. Disguised as a man, the pilgrim is hunted by pursuers set on her by her conniving brother.
A house by the lake near Berlin: this is where former pop star Arthur Weyer, 75, and his wife Elsa, who is ten years his junior, spent many happy hours. But that is a long time ago. The couple separated four years ago - Arthur had fallen in love with a much younger woman. This relationship failed since Arthur fell ill with dementia. Despite all the bitterness, Elsa still feels responsible for Arthur and is looking for a place in a nursing home. In order to be able to finance this, the house on the lake has to be sold - but against Arthur's will. For clearing out and repairs, the two hire 45-year-old Sorin, who lives alone on a houseboat and works as a DJ. Sorin and Arthur get along great right away. First, there are violent arguments between Elsa and Sorin. But slowly Elsa and Sorin are getting closer. Suddenly things are brought up that have been repressed for years.
Second part of Goethe's Tragedy
A man sees the dark side of the time-manipulating biotech company he works for when a crushing debt forces his wife to give up 40 years of her own life.
A man and a woman at an art exhibition share a fleeting moment of attraction, which neither can act upon. Days later, a chance second meeting leads to an innocent coffee and the two strangers – both married - toy with their unexplainable fascination for each other. Svenja is curious and finds herself in a hotel room with Roland, but she does not consummate an affair. A powerful executive at the large bank where Svenja's husband works, Roland is used to getting what he wants. He manipulates the transfer of her husband to Indonesia to replace a recently murdered bank manager. Unaware of Roland’s actions, Svenja now ceases to resist...
An unusual family story about two father and son generations, beginning on a German country side and ending in the students' revolt in Berlin.
A female corpse is washed up on the beach in Husum. Her fingertips were removed, and a piece of paper with a cell phone number was found in her throat, which belongs to the well-known political journalist Karl Kress.
During an unannounced visit to Berlin, Jakob and Hanna let their three grown up children know that they are no longer able to support them financially. Karla, Arnolt and Sonni seem to live successful city lives; but, on closer inspection, they are in the middle of different life-crises, which have a common cause: lack of independence. After a big family quarrel and a painful revelation of life-lies, every single relative is made aware of how little he or she knows about the others – though still interdependent.
In a hospital in Hamburg, an unidentified woman is disconnected from the life-support system. While the investigators search for the mysterious perpetrator, two more men are murdered.
Rudger, ex-boyfriend of Jan's girlfriend Milene and biological father of their son, turns up at the practice of alternative practitioner Jan. He spent ten years in prison. Now he wants his wife and child back. It's clear to Jan that the man can't be helped with homeopathic doses. Heavy artillery must be brought to bear. Steve, a former colleague who has gone off the rails, promises to help. The operation goes wrong, Rudger rages and Jan flees to one of his patients. The terminally ill Dorothee has retreated to a mill - and has nothing to lose...
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...
Janne Flecker returns to her hometown of Cuxhaven because her brother Erik was found murdered in the mud. There, Janne's picture of her family is crumbling, known shipyard owners.
Maravan, aged 24, is a Tamil asylum seeker in Switzerland, working as casual help in a highly rated, gourmet restaurant in Zurich. It is also well below his own standards, because he is a gifted and highly passionate cook. In Sri Lanka his grandmother initiated him in the culinary arts, not least in the secrets of aphrodisiacal cuisine. When Maravan loses his job his colleague Andrea persuades him into a deal of the special kind: a joint catering venture for love menus.
Agnes, a teacher from the Hessian provinces, has come to Berlin to identify a dead girl who might be Lydia, her runaway daughter. It turns out not to be Lydia, but Agnes stays in the city anyway. Still frantically looking, she comes a young stray called Ines who no longer leaves her side...
Exil tells the story of a chemical engineer of foreign origin who feels discriminated and bullied at work, plunging him into an identity crisis.
Archduchess Ottilie and her servants are in the middle of preparations for the big birthday bash for Princess Aurora. Lowly servant Johann wants nothing more than to be "one of them".
Divorced, widowed or long-term single: The participants of Flirtkurs 50plus the adult education center feel not yet old, but lonely. From the course, they hope for professional support for their attempts to find a new partner. But what trainer Jan trains with Julia, Frieda, Gila, and Britta, Friedrich, Heinz, and Ulf turns out to be far too mechanical for the individual needs and stories of the students. The course threatens to fail. But then the participants fire the coach and take the initiative themselves.
Jakob and Manu have developed their own specific survival strategies. Without a permanent home or steady job, they live in a makeshift camp in the woods and use the municipal swimming pool when they need to shower. Always short on cash, they make a living as providers of human services. They notice what is missing in other people′s lives and make a living by satisfying others′ desires and giving them what they need or what they lack.
Based on an autobiographic novel by Anita Lenz, the movie focuses on a apparently happy couple whose marriage turns out to be a big lie. Maja, author of architectural books, lives in Berlin, while her husband Helmut works as a professor of literature in the small town of Tübingen. Despite their long distance relationship, she thinks their marital harmony is perfect, until Helmut tells her about an affair with another woman. Maja is hurt even more by the fact that her husband's mistress isn't a young woman, but 43 years old and mother of Helmut's child...
A young composer moves from Berlin to the island of Ibiza and begins a friendship with an elderly woman whose painful past has caused her to reject everything to do with Germany, including her native language.
Alex can only accept his uncle's inheritance if he presents his wife and child.
A dead girl at the Elbe beach gives riddle to Chief Commissioner Jan Fabel. However, it does not stop at this one murder. Alluding to the literary models of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, a bloody trail soon runs through Hamburg. In his new novel, writer Gerhard Weiss argues that the bloody fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm were based on authentic models. Is the Hamburg fairy tale murderer inspired by Weiss's novel?
The ageing actor Peter Poller, whose name still has traction, is engaged as a guest at a provincial theater. They are performing a play by Molière. Poller is an alcoholic and his physical collapse is only a matter of time. His colleagues are watching him: the fear that the performance could fail through his fault is coupled with envy of his star role, which he also plays in his private life. His old "friend" and rival, the actor Karl Tietz, lurks unsuspectingly for the opportunity to stand in for him. Only the young Dagmar Möller seems to trust her great colleague. She makes every effort to help Poller overcome his problem and mediate between him and Tietz. But the battle continues - one wants to destroy the other. In the end, it is Dagmar who is broken by this game of intrigue, which she does not want to play and which she is not up to. However, the two old ladies are back on stage together - in a role that, like so many others, will "irrevocably" be their "last"...
Kostja, the German-Russian, and Beatrice, the German-African, have a big argument at night. Beatrice leaves the apartment and leaves Kostja behind with the baby, reinventing herself as an architect and psychologist, as an actress and screenwriter, while Kostja, the bicycle messenger, tries in vain to find somewhere to put his child. At some point he loses it. All three experience their odyssey through a Berlin summer day.
For her first television film, director Vera wants the perfect cast. But the first day of shooting is fast approaching and the numerous casting sessions have yet to find a suitable actress to play the leading role. Although the producer and crew are getting ever more exasperated with Vera, Gerwin is happy about the extra work, as he earns his money as an audition reader, delivering the lines of dialogue to the starry candidates at the various castings. When the male lead suddenly has to back out, Gerwin thinks that this might just be his chance.
A reflective cinematic essay intertwines philosophical dialogues—between a filmmaker and philosopher—episodes from Vladimir Nabokov’s life and literature, and imaginative reconstructions to probe the very texture of time.
Unabridged production of Goethe's Faust Ⅰ by Peter Stein's Faust Project.
Hanna and Simon are in a 20 year marriage with an unexciting relationship. By chance, they both meet and start separate affairs with Adam. Adam has no idea that his two lovers are married, until they are all found out when Hanna becomes pregnant, with the natural doubts stemming from their situation.
While working on a new railway tunnel, a geologist stumbles upon a hidden valley that is not marked on any map. The inhabitants are Jews who fled here 50 years ago and initially treat the intruder with suspicion.
Caro lives happily with her 18-year-old son Ben. Her ex-husband Manni moved out a long time ago and has a new family. Ben is now at an age where he is very bored of the occasional sailing trips and visits to relatives with his mother. But there is a lot to try out: late nights, clubs, girls and drugs. Caro has to experience how Ben tells her less and less and needs her less and less. When she sees surveillance footage of a robbery at a petrol station, where she was with her son shortly before, her protective instinct is awakened.
Billie and Hella, an unlikely female couple, travel to Apulia in Italy: while Billie sacrifices herself in selfless aid, Hella is mainly looking for fun.
A young immigrant actress, dressed as a costumed bear, faces a surreal odyssey in Berlin’s Soviet-era outskirts, where a chaotic birthday party blends humor, tragedy, and the echoes of a home she can’t forget.
Daniel is a singer who became famous overnight thanks to one song. But for the aspiring artist, the dream of fame was short-lived: his song turned out to be a one-hit wonder, and Daniel fell into a deep depression when his subsequent songs failed to connect with audiences. Daniel soon finds himself with few options left – he wants to end his life. However, his suicide attempt fails and he ends up in a secure psychiatric ward. He is allowed to leave on one condition: he must use his music to make a group of depressed people happy.