Lichter is an episodic tale from Hans-Christian Schmid about the life on the border between Germany and Poland. The film sheds light on the everyday stories of escape and desperateness.
Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fell in love with each other, but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. In the meantime, Francoise is picked up at a psychic department of a Berlin hospital by her husband, Pierre. After seeing Nina, Francoise believes that she has found her kidnapped daughter Marie, but neither Toni nor Pierre believe her. Nina is unsure about what to think...
Flanders, a famous female author, travels in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin wall into the German capital. She is deeply depressed by the events because she saw the communist state as a very good thing that has now ended. In the joy of these days she finds no one to understand her, so she has to travel back to Munich. After meeting several people, known and unknown, it seems as if there will be no way to go.
Twelve-year-old Martin is a little too small for his age. Too thin and too quiet, as his mother is unfortunately always reminding him. He and his blue baseball cap are joined at the hip, or rather, at the head. Martin and his parents have just moved to the quiet little town of Bellbach. A new home, a new school, but no new friends. Even on his first day, there’s trouble...
In a small town in Northern Germany, a penniless German veteran is offered a job as a deliveryman by an alcoholic Turkish entrepreneur, through which the former meets the latter's wife.
In 1980s East Germany, Barbara is a Berlin doctor banished to a country medical clinic for applying for an exit visa. Deeply unhappy with her reassignment and fearful of her co-workers as possible Stasi informants, Barbara stays aloof, especially from the good natured clinic head, Andre.
Brothers Grimms' fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel, brother and sister, who struggle against the witches.
After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.
A 17 year old boy falls in love with a 37 year old woman. As if this wouldn't be enough they are of different social classes and she is married.
Eva Jensen is a female carpenter form Hamburg who wants to make a new start on the Baltic Sea coast in eastern Germany. She tries to buy a workshop with a view of the sea offered for sale by Heide, who rents out beach chairs. Unfortunately, Heide’s ex-husband vetoes the sale. In trying to understand his reasons, Eva comes across a painful family secret from the days of the GDR. And in other respects too, the newcomer from the West faces prejudice in the village, although her skills are urgently needed. Fish-seller Christian is also interested in the workshop, which Eva just sees as fair competition. Then they discover a common passion, kite-surfing, and unexpectedly grow closer.
Medical student Hanna works in the pathology department during her studies. On her very first day at work, she is confronted with the body of her ex-boyfriend Michael, who allegedly died as the result of an accident. However, when she discovers discrepancies in the patient file and a fresh surgical scar on the dead man, she begins to investigate - and discovers something monstrous...
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?
Over the course of a century, as four girls from different time periods experience their youth on a German farm, their lives become intertwined until time seems to dissolve.
Six numbers in the lottery! If that's not good luck for Georg Freudenreich and fellow winner and brother-in-law Heinrich. This distracts from the feelings Heinrich has suppressed all his life. He has fallen in love with Edward. But now, at over 70, how is he supposed to live a love he has always denied himself?
Thirteen German directors present short films exploring the state of their country.
Julka is 75 years old and seems to have had a long and beautiful life, but a letter left in her house by her first love will change everything. Julka and Julie is a poetic love story between two women who reunite after 59 years of separation.
The quiet place in the gallery of the church in Iffeldorf, where Lena Fauch occasionally found refuge and listened to the organist practise, is a place she will not see again for a long time. She accepts the offer from Detective Superintendent Kuda and becomes a police chaplain in Munich. Her first assignment confronts her with the criminal investigator Gregor Hoffmann. Hoffmann, who was assaulted during an arrest, is supposed to work through his misconduct with Lena Fauch. Hoffmann is unapproachable and rude. The encounters with him are provocative and disturbing. Chief Inspector Christian Fenn behaves quite differently. He is a self-confessed Christian and is delighted to have Lena as support in what he calls the "fight against Sodom and Gomorrah". Fenn is firmly convinced that he is one of the good guys.
German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly survived Auschwitz but had to undergo reconstructive surgery as her face was disfigured. Without recognizing Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelganger.
Alexander Keller is dead in the kitchen. Next to him is his wife Leonie, who called the police and confessed to the crime. Did she kill in cold blood, was it manslaughter or self-defense? Public defender Gottwald gets to the bottom of her client's story.
In the early 60s, Bernward Vesper and fellow university student Gudrun Ensslin begin a passionate love in the stifling atmosphere of provincial West Germany. Dedicated to the power of the written word, Bernward and Gudrun found a publishing house whose first publication is, paradoxically to many, a controversial past work of Bernward's ostracized father, an infamous Nazi author. Bernward defends his father's writing ability, even if he is haunted by his father's suspicious past.
A mockumentary in 8 episodes: new solutions and thinking models, which will be with us in the near future and make the world a little more livable. An "active health insurance", in which the insured directly take over everything including medical activities and thus save costs. A new currency that expires in a few weeks and therefore stimulates spending. Unemployed people who, as "loan siblings", are given a new job and a good life. The traffic therapy group that wants to make you understand the snake as a "unitary organism". A therapy office in the fresh air, which finally gives musty psychotherapy a healthy freedom. Color the world back into balance, at least in the parking lot. Or use humans as a self-sufficient source of energy. Or a tangibly equal democracy: All people attain the same eye level, an optimal 1.9m [via platform shoes].
Judith moved to Berlin three weeks ago and is just starting her career. A new city, a new apartment, her first job - that was her life plan with her boyfriend Christian. But he has changed his mind and won't be joining her. So Judith unexpectedly finds herself on her own. As a psychotherapist for children and adolescents, she is highly motivated to help her young patients, but at the same time has to deal with her new work colleagues, the unfamiliar city and her loneliness. Then she meets marine biologist Martin, who is searching for a humpback whale that has lost its way in the Baltic Sea.
The everyday lives of teenagers, coming from various social backgrounds. For them, sexuality has become a substitute for love, resulting from emotional neglect.
Claire returns to her parental home as an adult. She has been in a wheelchair since childhood, having lost a foot in an accident at the age of six. She blamed her sister Rita for the accident, who has hated her ever since. When Rita learns that Claire has only come back to beg their mother for money for an operation, her anger escalates into pure hatred for her sister.
A 9th century woman of English extraction born in the German city of Ingelheim disguises herself as a man and rises through the Vatican ranks.
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.
Maik, a fourteen-year-old teenager, sets out on a road trip during summertime with Tschick, a new classmate, in a stolen car. The two share life changing experiences during the eventful journey.
Even though she is in great shape and only 36, the dancer Skye Rhodan is confronted with the approaching end of her career and the question of what she wants to do next in her life. Skye doesn't want to accept that she should only dance in the second division because of her age.
Because of trouble at school, 16-year old Isabell's single mum persuades her to take part in a self-knowledge seminar in the Sudeten Mountains. What begins as an unusual holiday adventure in an esoteric group, changes when one of the participants has a mental breakdown and disappears. Has the young woman left or is she the victim of a crime? Isabell is alarmed and begins to investigate the seminar and the other members. Her enquiries are met with a wall of silence. When the mutilated body of the woman who disappeared turns up, Isabell's stay at the wildly romantic resort becomes a nightmare.
Feature adaptation of adaptation of Torsten Schulz's novel set in East Berlin in 1968.
Germany, two days before the general election. In the popular talk show "Sechs gegen Neunzig", the shrewd presenter Frederic Neunzig offers the party candidates the opportunity to present their election platforms one last time. Harald Müllbeier, head of the temporary employment agency "Time for Talents", also sits on the panel as the voice of the people. While everyone is still fighting for their positions in the heated discussion, a woman storms into the studio and takes politicians and the company boss hostage.
Hiltrud Janssen soon achieves what only a few people in her life are able to do: she celebrates her 100th birthday. It's just a shame that she fell out with her younger sister Betty many years ago. Back then, Betty worked as a housekeeper for the influential CDU politician Heinrich Verhoeven and had an affair with him. Verhoeven was accused of adultery, but Betty was able to convince her sister Hiltrud to make a false statement. Verhoeven was acquitted and Hiltrud never spoke to Betty again. Hiltrud and Betty's sister Martha, now 98 years old, thought the 100th birthday was the perfect occasion to reconcile the estranged sisters and arranged a meeting.
An insecure drama student is given the lead role in a play by her director, but the role she is supposed to play is at odds with her real personality. The fusion of her stage persona and her real life persona becomes a psychological tour de force for the young woman, changing her private life.
Weimar, 1921. The life of 20-year-old Lotte Brendel seems to be predetermined. Her father sees her as a future wife and mother on the side of a man who is to take over the parental carpentry business. But the idiosyncratic Lotte joins a group of young artists against the will of her family, applies at the Bauhaus and is accepted. The Weimar Bauhaus, under the direction of the visionary Walter Gropius, aspires not only to combine arts and crafts, but also to find the place for the "New Man". In the student Paul Seligmann Lotte finds a supporter and her great love.
In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she falls in love with a dark-skinned, roving adventurer and the whole village starts talking about it.
Astrid is in her late forties and has her life firmly under control. She has fallen in love with Paul, and their first weekend trip together takes them to Budapest for a few romantic days, just the two of them. But in the Hungarian capital things happen differently than they'd planned: They run into Julius, Astrid's first great love, whom she'd met at an artists' party in East Germany in 1986.
17-year-old Paul likes strange things: stealth trails and abandoned buildings, whispered conversations and left-behind bags. Besides that, he seems to be a young man without qualities. His mysterious nature catches the eyes of his classmate Dala and his art-loving teacher Mr. Bulwer, both seemingly driven by hidden desires. Then a boy’s dead body is discovered in the forest...
A teenager is found murdered, and the examining doctor recognizes her son's knife. The film works its way back to reveal how this situation came about; a rare treatment of the taboo subject of youth criminality in Socialist society.
