During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.
After he loses his job, his father, and his girlfriend, Jan's life is a shambles. Then suddenly he meets freakish street musician Vera, and a bittersweet romance unfolds...
Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.
Simon, the leader of a police special unit, becomes caught up in a complex scheme involving bribery and money-laundering, as well as an affair with the beautiful wife of a government official investigating organized crime and political corruption. After the official is kidnapped, the chase leads to a dramatic conclusion high in the Bavarian Alps.
After fleeing to the West in 1961, peaceful times were supposed to begin for the Striesows. But Irene longs for the familiar GDR, fears her husband Dieter's supposed "second wives" and expects the Third World War every day. When the war finally breaks out in the living room, her children Ute, Wasa and Flori decide to help their mother's happiness along, with unexpected consequences.
A holiday celebration with the extended family gets stretched to the breaking point in this comedy from Germany. Sara is happily married to Jan, though this wasn't always the case -- Sara is Jan's second wife, while Sara has three ex-husbands, Gunnar, Andi and Erich, and she and Jan are raising children from each of their previous marriages. Jan is less than thrilled with the prospect of spending the holidays with Sara's mother, but things get worse when he learns his wife has planned a surprise for Christmas eve -- they'll be joined by Gunnar, Andi and Erich, as well as Erich's new wife Pauline, Andi's current spouse Rita and his own ex-wife, Eva. To call the atmosphere uncomfortable is an understatement, and things only get worse when Sara announces she's pregnant, which is quite troubling for Jan since he's been waiting for the right time to tell her he had a vasectomy several months before.
Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the camps in order to train the leader in rhetoric. Grünbaum is torn, but starts Hitler in his therapy ...
Tom is a perfect macho, whose prejudices are challenged when he loses his job, his apartment and his girlfriend and has to move in into a house with three feminists. Without his knowing the three start an experiment to convert him into a sensitive person showing respect for women and her problems. Not able to pay his rent Tom is forced to earn it by doing the housework and babysitting. This helps him changing his attitudes towards women and his housemates who at first treated him indifferently, start to fall in love with him.
Rolf Köster has been working as a cashier in a small bank branch for years. Every day passes like the day before. He has a thirteen-year-old daughter who would rather write in a diary than speak and a six-year-old son who has to wear a bicycle helmet because he is constantly banging his head against walls. His wife organizes the whole family life, and Rolf stays in the background. But he has doubts as to whether he, who has "everything", is really happy. Then Rolf is unexpectedly given a week's vacation. He decides not to tell his family and to leave the house as usual. Rolf Köster begins to lead a double life.
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.
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.
When dishwasher Ingo, whose girl-friend has just left him, returns a borrowed bar stool to the Folkwang Acting School in Essen, he stumbles into the audition for next year's new students. He lets Johannes, the broke and unsuccessful applicant, stay with him. Ingo decides to go to Munich with Johannes, where he wants to try his luck once again. Hitchhiking, they get rides with very different drivers on the autobahn. They meet up with the smooth-talking Ali in the wayside dinner "Raststätte Spessart". Arriving in Munich, the trio tries to find cheap sleeping accommodation. They enter Ingo into the audition at Munich acting school. Moreover, Johannes falls in love with street artist Herta from Berlin. Written by emkarpf
Zigeuner is on the hunt for the woman of his dreams, a woman who should also play the main role in the film. Meanwhile, ruthless producer Oskar Reiter wants to buy the film rights at all costs - and he is struggling for the love of the beautiful Valerie.
Feature adaptation of adaptation of Torsten Schulz's novel set in East Berlin in 1968.
The monkey child Akiko lives in the zoo, but his family sends him on a big mission: he is supposed to go out into the world and get his relatives out of the forest. Together they want to free the animals from the zoo
Polly, a 20-year-old released from juvenile detention, wants to lead an honest life away from her petty criminal family. She takes a job at a fast food restaurant and falls in love with Stefan, a police officer. Meanwhile, Ronny, Polly's sister's new boyfriend, persuades her parents to rob a liquor store to get the start-up capital they need to get into the aluminium prefabricated house business. Polly is also expected to help with this, and on top of that, she has to fend off Ronny's advances.
A single mother of three children lives a chaotic and not very wealthy life in which her oldest daughter tries to manage everything and wants to find a decent guy for her mum.
Henry is a playboy who has no idea that he is the father of a beautiful, cute girl out of a One-night-Stand. Her mother left the daughter in front of Henry door after her husband realized after 8 years of marriage that he is not the father so their relationship now is breaking up... By the way: Kokowääh, is how a German (in this case an 8 Year old child) that has never heard the dish before - would pronounce "Coq Au Vin" (chicken in a wine sauce).
Where our story takes place, only the chickens know what stress means. Otherwise, life in the countryside is quiet, so it's no wonder that the annual "stallion auction" is the highlight of cultural life—an event where the highest-bidding ladies can bid on a rendezvous with the most handsome young farmers.
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...
A teacher's colleague is critically wounded by a student. Traumatized, she attempts to cope.
The story centers on the life of a bordello in a midwestern prairie town in the 1870s. The whorehouse is run by pragmatic madam Annie Ryan and the film follows the life of several of her girls.
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.
This is a family story that covers thirty years in the life of the Freytag family (narrated by the grandson, Robert). When his grandfather returns from Russia in 1949, he becomes part of the German "economic miracle" by producing garden gnomes. Klaus, Robert's father, wants to become a writer. He marries Gisela who almost immediately gets pregnant with Robert - but the marriage doesn't work. Both parents abandon the child, and Robert goes on living with both pairs of grand parents. While his father belongs to the 1968 generation that rebels against their fathers he falls in love with the neighbor's's daughter Laura.
Helen is a nonconformist teenage girl who maintains a conflictual relationship with her parents. Hanging out most of her time with her friend Corinna, with whom she breaks one social taboo after another, she uses sex as a way to rebel and break the conventional bourgeois ethic. After an intimate shaving accident, Helen ends up in the hospital where it doesn’t take long before she makes waves. But there she finds Robin, a male nurse who will sweep her off her feet...
When Bertha dies, her granddaughter Iris inherits her house and finds herself back in the home where she and her cousin used to play dressing-up in the summer holidays. While she wanders from room to room, she gropes her way through memories and things she had forgotten: What did her grandfather really do before he went to war? Which men were Bertha’s daughters in love with? Who ate his apple with the seeds?
Marie is in Spain with her friends Frank and Steini looking for her missing dream man Jan. Frank discovers him on a lonely beach, but does not reveal the secret, and the three of them return to Germany. Five years later, when Frank is now married to Marie, he discovers an unsent letter to Jan at her place and forwards it. Jan returns home and initially lives with his parents, but when he finally meets Marie, she has to make a decision.
Rudy actually wanted to become one of the greats as a boxer - but when he gets knocked out again and the money is so tight that he has to drive out eggs, he listens to his friend Ebbie and tries his hand as a musician. When Ebbie finds the super wire to his record company, success seems inevitable. The first open air concert takes place, and after this performance all problems are solved - only differently than you think!
In the late 1970s the German secret service fights against RAF terrorism and searches for constitutional enemies in the public service. Teacher Brasch implicates secret service agent Körner and the government in the suicide of a young teen. As a result Brasch and the exposed Körner are fired.
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.
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.
Straight to the heart: a fleeting collision on a street corner, Mathilda and Bronski's first encounter. Andi will meet Johanna, who has to tame her daughter Mandy. Andi will meet David, who is trying to cope with his girlfriend Ali's ambitious career aspirations with an extensive load of booze. Tragicomic stories of encounters, relationships, loneliness and love....
Kemal Kayankaya, a private detective, was hired by a Turkish women, Ilter, to search for his husband, Amend, who has been missing since the death of her father, Vassif. Unknownst to him, he was about to unravel the secrets of his client's family, as well as their various dealings with the underworld and the police. Moreover, being a Turk raised in a German foster family, he has also begun to understand and accept his own ethnicity.
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...
Six intertwined people struggle with their own sincerity, and, in so doing, unravel their secrets and the lies they live.
When rail lines are cut and workers laid off, Kurt Grantke sabotages the Commercial Railway to protect his town. Despite no injuries or evidence, the line to Storchenroda closes. Caught by Commissar Stahl, Kurt is freed by friends and, with his new wife, joins fellow railway workers in emigrating to South America.
A singer flees from Nazi Germany, travels to Paris and befriends a young writer, his lover and a professor.
In this German political drama, an ex-Stasi agent encounters an old friend whom he may have betrayed after his friend tried to escape East Germany. The former East German agent is Otto Skrodt who after many years is about to be promoted in the highest government ranks. He is anxious to maintain a squeaky clean image. His daughter is Isabelle. The young and friendly Kalle returns after spending many years in jail for his escape attempts. He doesn't know exactly who blew the whistle, but his friend Skrodt is definitely under suspicion. Kalle returns to ostensibly renew the friendship and to see Isabelle whom he loves. The duplicitous friendship between the two men becomes the main focus of the story which features interesting plot twists at the end.
Berlin Alexanderplatz; within 24 hours, various stories rotate between the heights and depths of the square, between the television tower and the subway shafts, between larger and smaller fates, that slowly but surely become entangled.
Hans invites his friends to a lake house to celebrate his success as a writer. But after a weekend of lies and passion, no one is the same anymore.
Undine rescues a prince from drowning, and leaves him unconscious on shore, where he can be found, but she has already fallen in love with him. Unable to enjoy life below the waves, the mermaid makes a deal with the Sea Witch to become human. The mermaid must also give her voice as payment. And her humanity is only conditional: if she can make the prince fall in love with her and marry her, she can gain a share in his soul and be truly human, but if he marries another, she will die at the next sunrise. It turns out that the witch only made her believe she would die if the prince married another as a Secret Test of Character: by refusing to kill the prince even to save her own life, she proves that she already has a soul. So she remains human, gets her voice back, and sets out to explore the world.
Uli and Nora share an intimate, late love. But Uli always avoids the decision to stand on the common relationship. One morning Uli suffers a stroke during a tour of the harbor on the Elbe. He fights his way through the city to the reading room of the library where Nora works. At the last minute, an ambulance takes Uli to the hospital. In this situation, Nora is overwhelmed. When, on the initiative of her friend Eva, she fetches a few things for Uli from his apartment, a cell phone rings. At the other end there is an unknown female voice that sounds strangely familiar ...
A series of poems.
Sophia is going nuts about her relationship to Peter. One day when she is in the middle of committing suicide she meets Olga, who helps her through the night. Both women get to know each other better and both have certain difficulties with their lovers. Although they are both quite different, they are fascinated of each other. Sophia begins also to be fascinated of Olga's lover.
A group of freaks subsist as city nomads in an uncontrolled ghetto, doomed for demolition. Kongo, Strasser, Bobby and Jackie are heading out – back to nothing.
A great mosaic, a labyrinth of scenes, dialogue splinters, interviews, portraits of people surrounding Hamlet and wanting to be part of his story.
A young engineer is sent to post-WWII Berlin to help the Americans in spying on the Russians. In a time and place where discretion is still a man’s best friend, he falls in love with a mysterious woman who will take him on the dark side of evil.
On her way home from school, primary school pupil Biggi decides to treat herself to a bag of surprise goodies. However, the bag contains a great deal more than the sweeties she had bargained for: in it she finds an ear that can hear people.
Cowboy has a vision. He wants to save the planet with his movement of Free Swingers. That's why he applies for a grant at The Central Agency, who then sends a representative named Fey of Sweden to approve Cowboy's proposal. She demands results and he decides to stage a charity bicycle rally featuring a roster of two-wheeled Berlin misfits. Meanwhile Cowboy's neighbor kills his mother's budgie and sets the Devil of Hermannplatz on him to sabotage his plans. Pretty bad timing considering that he also has to rescue his stubborn mother from a shady retirement home. Torn between Cowboy's budding crush on Fey of Sweden, his hot neighbor Angel and his innate drive towards chaos, the rally soon turns into a race against time. Soon his mother will be taken away from him and the rally racers are doing anything other than what they should: cycling.
Away from home, away from her mother - that is 16-year-old Zoé's goal. She ends up on a small island with her older brother Theo and a 6-year-old neighbor boy. Zoé's world is fine here - until Theo falls in love with Sanja.
Rome is on the thresh-hold of the Holy year 1925, the city wishes to present itself as 'spotless' to the outside world. The appearance of a child's corpse puts an end to these aspirations. The police arrest a small time crook who has committed a robbery but has nothing to do with the murder of the child.
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.
A theatre director and his wife bring together a group of performers in an isolated, mountainous part of southern France.
Kleist's death at Wannsee - a spectacular case that has disturbed and fascinated posterity to this day. The German poet is found shot - what does that mean? What exactly happened on the afternoon of November 21, 1811 at Kleiner Wannsee? What do you know about the woman who died with him?
On an impulse, 60 year old Charlotte leaves her husband stranded at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. A deep and driven instinct has her setting off, away from her old mundane life as a grandmother, a mother, a wife, and towards a new and different life. Little does she know that her granddaughter, Jo, a wonderfully whimsical child, is hiding in the back of the car. Charlotte’s spontaneous escape triggers off a journey, not only for her and her granddaughter, but also for her husband Paul and daughter Alex. As Paul and Alex pursue Charlotte and Jo across the countryside, they stumble into their own mishaps, self discoveries and emotional confrontations.
An eleven year old girl can talk to animals. When a thief causes trouble in the local zoo, she comes to the rescue.
The 16-year-old Umberto, who lives in an East German small town with his mother and his little half-sister Bianca, dreams of Pa-isch, the country to which Bianca's Angolan father returned long ago. Pa-isch, a verballhorn of the Portuguese word for country, is far enough to no longer have to see the changing men's acquaintances of his drinking mother. When the family moves to Hamburg, everything gets even worse. The mother professionalises her constant partner changes and becomes ill with all abundance. Umberto's flame Tschibo also turns out to be a prostitute. Umberto is full of nose. He steals a heavy machine and breaks up to Africa with Bianca.
A Polish woman and a German man fall in love against the odds and decide to set up a cemetery for exiles. But can their daring venture survive the call of the toad? Adapted from Gunter Grass’ novel.
Grandmother Maria, Sam and the riding instructor Kaan are trying together to keep Gut Kaltenbach running, which is in financial difficulties. The ambitious Isabell supports her, although she secretly pursues her own goals. The impulsive Ari comes to riding training in Kaltenbach, where she develops a special relationship with Windstorm, the eponymous horse of the film series, and she also makes friends with Mika. Mika and Ari try to save the estate and protect Windstorm from reckless horse trainer Thordur Thorvaldson.
In 1930s Berlin, Dr. Jakob Fabian, who works by day in advertising for a cigarette company and by night wanders the streets of the city, falls in love with an actress. As her career begins to blossom, prospects for his future begin to wane.
Three stories about couples who all have a gas station in Austria
"If buildings could talk, what would they say about us?" CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE offers six startling responses. This 3D film project about the soul of buildings allows six iconic and very different buildings to speak for themselves, examining human life from the unblinking perspective of a manmade structure. Six acclaimed filmmakers bring their own visual style and artistic approach to the project. Buildings, they show us, are material manifestations of human thought and action: the Berlin Philharmonic, an icon of modernity; the National Library of Russia, a kingdom of thoughts; Halden Prison, the world's most humane prison; the Salk Institute, an institute for breakthrough science; the Oslo Opera House, a futuristic symbiosis of art and life; and the Centre Pompidou, a modern culture machine. CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE explores how each of these landmarks reflects our culture and guards our collective memory.
Hani, Kasih and Saya have shared a deep friendship since their youth. Now, after years, the three meet again. But no matter where they are, it becomes clear time and again that everyday racism affects their lives. Nonetheless, their friendship gives them strength. Until one dramatic night shakes everything up.