Maria marries a young soldier in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. She must rely on her beauty and ambition to navigate the difficult post-war years alone.
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.
On the brink of her 30th birthday, Fanny feels the door to marital happiness closing on her. She is obsessed with death and even visits evening classes on dying, so it seems fitting that she encounters a skeleton in the malfunctioning elevator of her apartment building. The skeleton is her neighbour Orfeo, a Black, gay, self-declared psychic, who convinces her that she is about to meet "him". But is it really Lothar, the new yuppie apartment manager ...?
Elvira Weishaupt, once a burly working-class butcher, has made an enormous sacrifice for love. She has undergone a sex change for a romantic interest who has abandoned her, and she now must struggle to reconcile her past life with her present identity.
In the winter of 1942-43, a Jewish family leaps from a train going through Silesia. They are separated in the woods, and Leon, a local peasant who's now a farmer of some wealth, discovers the woman, Rosa, and hides her in his cellar. Leon's a middle-aged Catholic bachelor, tormented by his sexual drive. He doesn't tell Rosa he's seen signs her husband is alive, and he begs her to love him. Rosa offers herself to Leon if he'll help a local Jew in hiding who needs money. Leon pays, and love between Rosa and him does develop, but then Leon's peasant subservience and his limited empathy lead to tragedy. At the war's end, a ray of sunshine comes from an unexpected place.
Success is a question of confidence, particularly in times of crisis. Life would be unbearable if there weren’t beautiful things to brighten it up a little, including pretty faces. Frank Knöpfel constantly flirts with life with his beguiling bright blue eyes. He buys a complete stranger an expensive coat in a designer boutique just because he feels like it. He disguises himself as a businessman from Oslo, a Mafia boss, a stock exchange specialist and an estate agent, whatever it takes to bring in the cash. He is the type of person who enjoys looking in the mirror, and delights in what he sees there. A flirtation with a customer in a boutique leads to Frank’s undoing.
The lackluster and plodding Bolweiser has the (mis)fortune to be married to the town’s siren; his trusting nature leads him into serious trouble when she beds nearly every available guy.
Sonia’s nightmare is never ending. Her super-rich husband Frederic is now locked in a psychiatric unit after he attempted to kill her. But her mother-in-law continues to make her life hell by controlling her every move. Getting a job at a wellness spa in the mountains comes at just the rights time. However, on arriving, Sonia quickly realises that the villagers are not particularly sympathetic to newcomers and mysterious things begin to happen, all of them strangely connected to the legend of the devil of Milan. But is it just her mind playing tricks on her? DER TEUFEL VON MAILAND is a thriller based on the novel by Swiss author Martin Suter.
Gordon and Catherine are happy. He feels safe with her, she divorces him for him. The couple buy a farm in Tanzania, and soon Catherine is pregnant. Then the first clouds begin to gather... The drama is based on the case of Kerstin Cameron, who was accused of murdering her husband in 2000.
Lona Vogt is a target investigator and, together with her friend and colleague Simon Katzer, has been on the trail of the murderer Manuel Bove for some time. Then the body of a young woman is found in the Wadden Sea near Husum.
70-year old Brandner Kaspar lives with his granddaughter Nannerl in the mountains at the Schliersee. As he is visited by the Death and wants to take him, Brandner Kaspar tricks him and gets another 20 years of life.
Each is dependent on the other. He breaks into the passport office to get a passport. He is surprised and ends up back in prison, where he is trained in military drill. After his release, he once again lodges with relatives, his sister and brother-in-law. Wearing a second-hand captain's uniform, he first takes over a guard unit and uses it to occupy Köpenick town hall, where all the employees of the town council submit to the supposed captain. The mayor is promoted to Berlin and Voigt presents himself to the authorities a few days later. At first, everyone present laughs at the prank, but then Voigt is made aware of the legal consequences. He is sent back to prison, but shortly afterwards he is pardoned by the Emperor.
Six intertwined people struggle with their own sincerity, and, in so doing, unravel their secrets and the lies they live.
Berlin public prosecutor Susanne Marquardt wakes up in hospital after an accident. The patient, who is suffering from a tumor, can't remember anything. A short time later, she wants to throw herself onto a train track. Businessman Martin pulls her back at the last second. Coincidence?
Dramatic life of Gustav "Bubi" Scholz, who rose from post-war obscurity and a background in black market dealings to become a celebrated European boxing champion in the late 1940s. Charismatic and widely admired, he quickly became a national icon. But as the spotlight fades and his victories grow distant, Scholz’s personal life begins to unravel, leading him into a downward spiral of addiction and emotional turmoil.
The Twenties: The German Fuhrmann family spend their holidays in Italy again. The country is full of mysteries in that time. The Fuhrmann's have to realize the upcoming and growing fascism and their children are fascinated by a magician visiting the town. Soon nothing is as usual. The times are changing ...
Love story spanning 60 years of the lives of Charlotte and Hugo. As a teenager before the war she is in love with him, but he marries her sister. They share some brief happy moments during the difficult post-war period, then they are separated for the longest time. They meet again as 80-year olds.
A German TV drama
A love story between a former Olympic swimmer turned jewel thief and a pastry chef/sex worker.
In this triangle melodrama, a woman shuts herself off from the world, rejects the advancement of her husband in society, and enthrones her own successor.
An abstract look at the changes in a woman's inner self. Married to a down-and-out writer, she is forced into a liaison with a book thief.
After the essay "On Marionette theatre" by Heinrich von Kleist. The film focuses on Kleist himself, torn apart, searching for knowledge, for identity, trapped in his loneliness and self-absorption, jumping over walls, making grimaces, cruelty, suffering.
An internist is accused of murdering the sixth of his seven wives. During the court hearing, numerous statements, especially those made by his former wives, confront him with his past. Finally acquitted, the doctor loses himself in feelings of deepest guilt and confusion as he searches for the truth about himself. The strict film adaptation of the novel by Max Frisch (1982).
After several strokes of fate ends a rage eruption of the otherwise so quiet power engineering technician Felix Grünler with a criminal complaint for assault. A grateful affair for his sister-in-law Karin, who forges an intrigue to gain the inheritance of her mother-in-law. She succeeds in having Felix admitted to psychiatry as incompetent. He is determined not to get into therapy. For doctors, this confirms the picture of the labile patient. But in the other patients Felix gives his consistent anti-attitude in the long run benevolent recognition.
Anna is a Jewish girl in Germany. When the Nazis come to power in the 1930s, her family has to flee the country without being able to bring any of their belongings. Even young Anna's pink toy rabbit has been confiscated along with the family's other possessions. Initially the family lives in Switzerland, but even here they come to feel the antisemitism. And when money becomes scarce, and Anna's father can't find work as a journalist and Jew, they move on to France, where they are no long submitted to racial discrimination, but struggle financially. Eventually the entire family manages to go to England.
A documentary that focuses on the making of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria Braun".
The film interweaves three layers: the centre is Kleist's play "Penthesilea". Like from a distance Kleist observes the relationship beween man and woman, when he transfers into mythical Greece what in his time became a problem for him in Prussia - and remains to be a problem also for us. The director's associations during the work form the second layer. Reality and fantasy blend to an imaginary biography of Kleist, the third layer. At the end of the film Kleist is identical with his title character Penthesilesa.
Based on archive holdings from nine decades, director Hannes Rossacher has created a complete Jedermann performance and thus a unique cultural-historical puzzle from Alexander Moissi to Nicholas Ofczarek. The success story of the phenomenon "Everyman" is told in an unprecedented way.
In 1939, Charlotte Salomon leaves Berlin to seek refuge at her grandparents' villa in the south of France. A little later, war breaks out, and Charlotte must, besides forgetting all she left behind, deal with her grandmother's depression, and her mother's suicide. To fight despair, Charlotte starts to paint, producing over one thousand images. "Is my life real, or is it theater?" This is the title she gives her body of work, which highlights her former life in Berlin. She finds herself though her art, but in 1943 is deported to Germany and Auschwitz.
An imaginary biography of Jean Genet, poet and high priest of evil. "Revolt is something I allow myself", said Jean Genet in 1975. Born in Paris in 1910, raised and humiliated in an approved school, a pederast and thief who has been to prison 14 times and expelled from five European countries. His novels are ballads of poisonous beauty, his plays are murky rituals of oppression where each person acts out the role imposed upon him by the others.
A mockumentary - after suffering a tragic accident on a shoot in Tuscany, Udo Kier is about to die. Alfred Edel is sent in to film an obituary.