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.
In October 1989, the part of the West Berlin borough of Kreuzberg called SO 36, had been largely shut off by the Wall from the rest of the city for 28 years. A lethargic sub-culture of students, artists, bohemians and barflys had flourished among crumbling buildings. Part of that microcosm is barkeeper Frank, semi-formally called 'Herr Lehmann' by friends and patrons. He hangs out drinking, sports utter disregard for anything beyond SO 36 and lazily pursues an affair with cook Katrin. His lifestyle is gradually disturbed, when his parents show up for a visit, things go awry with Katrin and his best friend Karl starts to act strange. Meanwhile, political turmoil mounts on the other side of the Wall.
Frank and Katrin return to Frankfurt to stop the scientist responsible for unleashing the plague of genetically mutated vermin upon the city.
Episodes about different stages of relationships: from flirtation to falling out of love.
The plan seems to be working. The beautiful policewoman takes up a position in Deniz's company and quickly gains the trust and affection of her young compatriot. Gradually, she learns details about the planned attack from Deniz, who is actually in contact with fanatical Islamists, including German Muslim converts. And she gets to know the head of the group, the shady Abu "Ayman" Gallaz. But Yasemin can't fool him. Ayman immediately starts his own investigations. When his suspicions are confirmed and he is certain that Deniz has been seduced by an undercover agent, he skillfully exploits this knowledge. He lures the police onto the wrong track with targeted false information and gives Deniz the job of eliminating Yasemin.
A girl, Carola, whose vacation in Kenya takes an interesting turn when she becomes infatuated with a Masai. Carola decides to leave her boyfriend to stay with her lover. There, she has to adapt to the Masai's way of life and get used to their food which includes milk mixed with blood. She also has to face her husband's attitude towards women and what he expects from a wife. Nonetheless, Carola is welcomed warmly into the tribe she has chosen to join.
After greengrocer Mehmet Üsker is murdered, police detective Inspector Menemenci is put on the case. At the same time, detective Vera Gemini is on the lookout for a former foreign legionnaire who, however, has been presumed dead for years. It soon turns out that there must be a connection between the two cases.
A municipal worker's strike combined with Frankfurt's hottest summer in 150 years brings infected rats out onto the streets.
Martin is the ambitious one in the family. He is poised to start on his doctorate, when he is diagnosed with testicular cancer and all his future plans begin to unravel. The removal of one testicle reduces the most immediate threat, but the cancer has already spread and Martin's doctor argues for an operation that would save him, but could also castrate him.
When Tina arrives at home, another young woman has just been murdered in the village - the third victim of a serial killer
Paula, a primary school teacher from Berlin, was left by her then boyfriend Jan eight years ago. Now she unexpectedly gets an invitation to his wedding. Paula agrees because she doesn't want to show any weakness. She is accompanied by her neighbor Ben, whom she claims is her fiancé...
During the pagan Rauhnächte, unbridled revelry reigns in the former Viking town of Ribe. Even at the police station, where conscientious patrol officer Ida Sörensen is helping out on the night shift, chaos reigns. At this moment, no one is thinking about the sadistic serial killer who kidnaps people and leaves them to starve in the forest.
A hit man whose mission is to prevent the printing of a tell-all book written by a former Mafioso, falls in love with the employee who may lose her job if the book doesn't get published.
Jerry Cotton is the best agent of the FBI and suspected of murder. So he has to find the real killers from gangster boss Serrano.
Hatice has a problem: she desperately needs a man. Because her younger sister Fatma is pregnant and must marry immediately. However, that is only allowed when Hatice is under the hood, as the old Anatolian tradition, to which the father Ismail firmly clings. But where should Hatice find a groom so fast? Because a Turk may not be under any circumstances, which may blaze in the German man already a bit Turkish fire. And so Hatice goes in search of her "Hans with hot sauce".
Journalist Elias investigates the background to a suicide in a village in East Westphalia. Günther Sperl, son of the local butcher, has taken his own life after years of humiliation and despair. His oversensitive talent was not appreciated in the stuffy provincial atmosphere. Elias, who shares his fear of deviating from the "normal", feels a strong inner closeness to him and delves deeper and deeper into the outsider's past. During his research, he himself experiences the coldness and narrow-mindedness of the villagers.
Frido Schulz and Rosa Schätzlein have known each other since their student days. But while Rosa made a career as a lawyer, Frido had to take over his father's electrical store. Since then, he and Rosa have been like cats and dogs, even though they are neighbors and Frido's wife Hanne is Rosa's best friend. But then Hanne dies. Her sudden death only exacerbates their relationship as neighbors. Frido's accusations against Rosa reach their climax when he drags her to court for theft: She is accused of stealing his little black cat, which had run into him one evening.
For years, the dairy farmer Klara has tried to keep the court of her deceased parents. But the business is running badly, a sale of the farm seems inevitable. If necessary, Klara asks her sister Mika for help. She lives as a successful gallery owner in the posh Düsseldorf and hopes to finally move her sister to a new beginning in the city. Very quickly, however, shows that the down-to-earth Klara and her sister Mika have very opposite ideas of a fulfilled life. With heart and humor, Olaf Kreinsen's clever comedy tells of the conflicts of an unequal sibling duo.
Jonas is in his mid-twenties, still lives with his parents and gets dumped by his girlfriend. He soon gets to know Lena, a tough young woman with ideals, and immediately falls in love with her. However, to prove he is worthy of her love, he has to pass an endurance test.
Tamar, Josef, Bracha and Wolfgang survived the persecution and the camps. May 1945. The children do not know where their parents are. In the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, they now live next to English soldiers and broken concentration camp inmates. They find shelter in the villa of the Jewish Warburg family in Hamburg-Blankenese. From Hell to Paradise. Anti-Semitism in post-war Germany is catching up with children and educators - hostility in the zoo, disregard in the local hospital. The children are waiting impatiently for the long journey to their new home in Palestine.
An absurd comedy about a couple whose perfect façade is becoming more and more cracked. Olli and Anja are a happy couple – but then Anja gets pregnant and her body releases hormones that turn her into a different person for a few weeks. A stressful person. Anja’s mood swings make Olli despair. Nine months later she goes into labour. On the way to the hospital, Anja accidentally meets Olli’s lover. And from then on, everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
Lily wants to be run a brothel. But corrupt cops threaten her with violence. Lily needs help.
"Are they corrupt?" After arriving in Cape Town, Johann and Inge are amazed by the swanky estate of their son Mark's future mother-in-law. His wedding to Nandi is to be organized by Rosa, a childhood friend of the groom who has flown in from Berlin. Of course, no one could have imagined that after thirty years, Rosa and Mark's fire would flare up again...
The Wieland and Aschenbach families urgently need daycare places. Fortunately, the director of the municipal daycare center, Johannes Herder, is moving in right next door to them. However, there is only one free daycare place left. That's why every family is now trying to impress Herder. He uses the parents' eagerness to his advantage until the situation gets out of hand just before Christmas.
Rosa can only dream of romantic togetherness with her husband Mark. Temporarily homeless, her mother Ruth has taken up residence in the middle of the living room. Things get tricky for Rosa when the landlord also sues for personal use. She loses in court, but Rosa wins a new job: the shy judge needs professional help with a marriage proposal. Of course, Rosa and Meral manage to arrange a suitable setting to convince Anja, the woman they love. But this is only the beginning of the real problems, because Anja's past hides a dark secret.
Lisa faces a difficult decision. The landscape architect is heavily in debt. The bank is urging her to sell her villa on Lake Starnberg, in need of renovation, where she lives with her two children. In this depressing situation, she meets Hugo again, her ex who left her five years ago. The former star architect is also bankrupt. But he has a surprising idea that could save them both financially: With his professional experience and their intuition, they would have a chance of winning the prize money together in a highly endowed competition.
A deadly virus is stolen from the high-security laboratory of a biotechnology company. Although the thief can be found, lifeless and bleeding from the nose and ears, the danger is not over yet: A gang of unscrupulous criminals is also on the hunt for the virus. Super-GAU at Oxenford Medical: A lab technician has stolen a rabbit infected with the deadly Madoba-2 virus from the high-security laboratory near Edinburgh. After the thief's gruesome death by infection, a frantic damage limitation operation begins. Toni Gallo, the head of security at Oxenford, realizes that the theft is only the prelude to an even greater catastrophe, because only a few days later criminals attack the laboratory and steal the virus. When a terrible snowstorm condemns the police to inactivity, Toni takes up the pursuit of the perpetrators alone...
Psychotherapist Ulf has finally managed to marry his Sarah and become Heinrich's son-in-law, but that's only where the problems begin. Just now, Sarah's parents have planned to visit Ulf's parents for a weekend.
Psychotherapist Ulf Weiß and his girlfriend Sarah Gievenbeck want to get married. They go to Sarah's parents' house for a weekend. Sarah's father, Heinrich Gievenbeck, a judge at Münster District Court, is extremely pedantic and keeps a close eye on his daughter's well-being. So this weekend he wants to test whether Ulf really is the right man for Sarah. At first Ulf and Sarah have to sleep in separate rooms, and the next morning Heinrich asks Ulf to come hunting with him at the crack of dawn. Ulf does Heinrich the favor. But he accidentally shoots Heinrich's beloved dog instead of the stag.
Vera and Hans have been happy for 15 years - only the marriage certificate is still missing. Vera's mother wants to help the couple on the jumps and proposes them to the local radio station as "the perfect couple of the week". This means that if they marry within four weeks, the sender pays the wedding. The stars are not unfavorable. But just before the wedding date confirmed that Libra and Taurus are an explosive combination. The high-caliber romantic comedy shows in an amusing, subtle way how heavenly influences in relationships can move mountains.
Gerri does not like anymore. Stylishly she wants to promote herself to the hereafter. She does not mince words in her farewell letters. But then the tablets do not work. "You are not the problem, you are the solution!" Her friend Charly tries to comfort her. And she's right: Gerri grabs himself by the head, pulls himself out of the mess and orders the chaos that has triggered them.
Claire's family life is not very harmonious at the moment: her marriage to teacher Frank is in crisis and her children Betti and Daniel are distant. In a quiet moment, Claire immerses herself once again in the world of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", in which she once played the leading role. But then she is magically transformed into her 16-year-old self! As a classmate of her children, she not only gets to know them anew, but also her husband Frank.
Back then they were just friends, now they are a couple: "Mothers, Fathers, Children" is the sequel to the comedy "How do I raise my mother?". This time it's about the joys and sorrows of the patchwork family: Ginger, the eternal flower child, has to look after her sick mother, neglects her boyfriend Hans and learns to appreciate nurse Laurens in return. Hans, on the other hand, is courted by Marianne, Ginger's daughter wants to meet her biological father, and son Max is deeply in love.
One last wish: In this tragicomedy, three women are asked to repeat their Interrail trip together after the death of their childhood friend - with her daughter.
Finally holidays. Tinka can hardly wait to be away from everyday life for the first time with her twelve-year-old son Paul and her dream man Jürgen. A relaxed holiday is also the right opportunity to convince Jürgen, who is not a wedding person, to take the next step in their relationship. Tinka wants to marry Jürgen, and she wants Jürgen and her son to finally understand each other better.
A family celebrates Christmas in a Norwegian log cabin. Old conflicts and a tragic secret cloud the mood.
Although Maja and Thorsten have been divorced for two years, it is important to them to go on vacation with their sons once a year. The thought is good, the execution miserable.
Henni enthusiastically gets off the Munich-Bari intercity bus in sunny Apulia. Her new assignment takes the globetrotting nanny to a German expat family with two teenage children. Rosa Westphal, who runs a picturesque olive farm with her husband Benno, has high hopes for the governess with the impressive credentials. However, it seems strange to Henni that the self-confident straight-A student Luisa and the musically gifted but sensitive Julian need supervision at all - especially as the family's finances are clearly in a bad way. Henni also wonders about a secret visit to the doctor by her client, which she happens to observe.
Officer Henrik and therapist Anja would hardly be a match on a dating platform! She, a mother of three and in the midst of separating from her former dream man, has other things on her mind right now than falling in love again. He, disciplined and hard on himself, struggles with war trauma and relationship problems. When the man in his forties has to attend therapy sessions prescribed by his doctor at Anja's “Martinshof,” their paths cross.